A faster way to make drug microparticles

Penn Engineers have developed a liquid assembly line process that controls flow rates to produce particles of a consistent size at a thousand times the speed.

Evan Lerner

Researchers show that cells’ perception of stiffness is a matter of time

The relative stiffness of a cell’s environment is known to have a large effect on that cell’s behavior, including how well the cell can stick or move. Now, a new study by University of Pennsylvania researchers demonstrates the role timing plays in how cells perceive this stiffness.

Ali Sundermier Evan Lerner

Penn engineers test drug transfer using placenta-on-a-chip

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Science have demonstrated the feasibility of their “organ-on-a-chip” platform in studying how drugs are transported across the human placental barrier.

Ali Sundermier, Evan Lerner

Penn Engineers Make First Full Network Model of the Musculoskeletal System

Network science examines how the actions of a system’s individual parts affect the behavior of the system as a whole. Some commonly studied networks include computer chip components and social media users, but University of Pennsylvania engineers are now applying network science to a much older system: the human body.

Evan Lerner

Penn Engineers: Bone Marrow Transplant Stem Cells Can 'Swim' Upstream

When a cancer patient receives a bone marrow transplant, time is of the essence. Healthy stem cells, which can restart the production of blood cells and immune system components after a patient’s own are compromised, need to make their way from the circulatory system into the bones as quickly as possible.

Evan Lerner, Ali Sundermier

Penn Researchers Establish Universal Signature Fundamental to How Glassy Materials Fail

Dropping a smartphone on its glass screen, which is made of atoms jammed together with no discernible order, could result in it shattering. Unlike metals and other crystalline materials, glass and many other disordered solids cannot be deformed significantly before failing and, because of their lack of crystalline order, it is difficult to predict which atoms would change during failure.

Evan Lerner, Ali Sundermier

Penn Engineers Develop Microchip Laser Stabilizer, Enabling Faster Data Transfer

With streaming movies and UltraHD television taking more and more bandwidth, there is a race to deliver data into people’s homes as quickly as possible. Light-based fiber optic connections promise far faster data rates than standard electricity-based coaxial cables, so making laser sources smaller, cheaper and more stable is a high priority for engineers.

Evan Lerner, Ali Sundermier