Among the guests at the 1964 retirement party of famed Penn ophthalmologist Dr. Harold G. Scheie (center) was Lord Earl Louis Mountbatten (left), a member of the British royal family and former Supreme Allied Commander in Southeast Asia during World War II. With good reason, too: If not for Scheie, Mountbatten may well have lost his eyesight two decades earlier.
Mountbatten, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, was touring a combat zone late in the war when his jeep passed under some low-hanging bamboo. The bamboo struck him in the eye, causing hemorrhaging and severe wounds. Scheie, a then up-and-coming ophthalmologist serving in Burma with the 31st Hospital Unit of the Army Medical Corps, performed a delicate operation to save the eye, ordered Mountbatten to nearly a week of bed rest, then stayed near the commander through this recovery. Mountbatten’s sight was saved, and the two became lifelong friends. In fact, when Penn’s Scheie Eye Institute was dedicated in 1972, it was Mountbatten who led the ceremonies.
For more on this and other notable moments in Penn history, go to the University Archives web site at www.archives.upenn.edu.
Novel plant-based approach to a better, cheaper GLP-1 delivery system
Research led by Penn Dental’s Henry Daniell investigates the use of a lettuce-based, plant-encapsulated delivery platform as a new oral delivery of two GLP-1 drugs previously approved by the FDA in injectable form.
No brain, no gain: Neuronal activity enhances benefits of exercise
Research led by Penn neuroscientist J. Nicholas Betley and collaborators finds that hypothalamic neurons are essential for translating physical exertion into endurance, potentially opening the door to exercise-mimicking therapies.
In honor of Valentine's Day, and as a way of fostering community in her Shakespeare in Love course, Becky Friedman took her students to the University Club for lunch one class period. They talked about the movie "Shakespeare in Love," as part of a broader conversation on how Shakespeare's works are adapted.
In Becky Friedman’s English course Shakespeare in Love, undergraduate students analyze language, genre, and adaptation in the Bard’s plays through the lens of love.
Beating the heat: Designing cooling for bodies in motion
Dorit Aviv, director of Weitzman’s Thermal Architecture Lab, studies how humans, technology, and design intersect, paving the way for the development of novel approaches to cooling people efficiently.
