$1.2 million goes to SEAS for connectivity in Ghana
The School of Engineering and Applied Science’s efforts to close the global digital divide have been recognized with a $1.12 million grant in Hewlett-Packard equipment and services. Touted as the most extensive and concrete undertaking by an American institution of higher education, SEAS’ grassroots project will lay the foundation for a high-speed information and communication infrastructure in Ghana. In three years, SEAS has already founded computer laboratories in four developing nations, including Ecuador, India and Mali. The Hewlett-Packard award is to be jointly administered by Penn and Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.
The Dutch Graduate School Polymers at Eindhoven University of Technology has selected Professor of Chemistry Virgil Percec to be the awardee of the 2002 Dutch Polymers PTN Award. Awarded annually to an internationally renowned scientist for achievement in the study and research of polymer science and engineering, it includes a painting and a cash award. Percec and his family are invited to the Netherlands in recognition of his honor.
Professor of Art History Cecil L. Striker has been elected honorary director for life of the American Research Institute in Turkey. Striker has been associated with the American Research Institute since its founding in 1965 and served as president from 1977 to 1984.
Dr. Steven Bird has been elected to a three-year term on the Committee on Endangered Languages. Bird, associate director and senior researcher of the Linguistic Data Consortium, focuses his research on formal and computational models for linguistic information.
Penn engineers and collaborators have developed a transparent, micro-engineered device that houses a living, vascularized model of human lung cancer—a “tumor on a chip”—and show that the diabetes drug vildagliptin helps more CAR T cells break through the tumor’s defenses and attack it effectively.
Tumor-on-a-chip offers insight into cancer-fighting cells in immunotherapy
Penn engineers and collaborators have built a living tumor on a chip to expose how cancers block immune attacks, and how one existing drug could make immunotherapy like CAR T more effective against solid tumors.
Professor of city and regional planning Erick Guerra recently published a book exploring the economic and societal impacts of American highways. He explains some of the pitfalls associated with an ever-expansive highway system, arguing that spending more on highways might not be the solution to the country’s transportation issues.
Penn urban planner Erick Guerra’s new book, “Overbuilt,” argues that additional spending on building more highways might not be the solution to the country’s transportation issues. In a Q&A, Guerra shares his insights.
Xin Sun prepares samples collected from the Eastern Tropical North Pacific aboard a research vessel. By adding stable isotope tracers to these vials, Sun and her team can track how different microbial groups convert nitrogen compounds into nitrous oxide, revealing how subtle shifts in oxygen and organic matter change the ocean’s chemistry.
Can tiny ocean organisms offer the key to better climate modeling?
In the shadowy layers of the Pacific, microbes decide how much nitrous oxide—a potent greenhouse gas—rises skyward. New research from Penn’s Xin Sun offers an improved understanding of microbial ecology and geochemistry—key to forecasting global emissions in response to natural and man-made climate change.
Two X-ray plates from Arthur Goodspeed, believed to have created the world’s first X-ray image, were donated by his family to Penn’s University Archives.
The Dutch Graduate School Polymers at Eindhoven University of Technology has selected Professor of Chemistry Virgil Percec to be the awardee of the 2002 Dutch Polymers PTN Award. Awarded annually to an internationally renowned scientist for achievement in the study and research of polymer science and engineering, it includes a painting and a cash award. Percec and his family are invited to the Netherlands in recognition of his honor.
