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Where the Class of 2026 is headed
Two Penn Med students and two others under a 2026 balloon at Penn’s 2026 Match Day.

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Where the Class of 2026 is headed

Graduates from all 12 Schools are taking their degrees and expertise and heading out into the world as graduate students, postdocs, residents, entrepreneurs, startup execs, policy workers, and more, with the interdisciplinary groundwork of a Penn degree in tow.

3 min. read

Chapters of Change: Thirty years of life sciences transformation at Penn
Two people in a lab in the Singh Center.

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Chapters of Change: Thirty years of life sciences transformation at Penn

 In the fourth and final installment of the series, “Chapters of Change” highlights another transformational moment in Penn’s past when the evolution of life sciences research sparked the University to commit to investing in new research facilities and cross-disciplinary collaboration.

6 min. read

New educational video resources will support patients, caregivers, clinicians

New educational video resources will support patients, caregivers, clinicians

Penn Dental Medicine’s new educational video resources are designed to enhance the medical-dental integration efforts at the School’s community care center at PHMC Public Health Campus on Cedar in West Philadelphia, and to educate patients and caregivers of persons with disabilities.

Fighting oral cancer with bioengineered chewing gum
A latex-gloved hand hoding a petri dish of medical chewing gum.

A bioengineered bean gum from the lab of Penn Dental’s Henry Daniell is found to reduce the levels of three microbes associated with head and neck squamous cell cancer to almost zero, without affecting the beneficial bacteria normally found in the mouth.

(Image: Kevin Monko/Penn Dental Medicine)

Fighting oral cancer with bioengineered chewing gum

Research led by Penn Dental’s Henry Daniell shows that antiviral and antibacterial chewing gums reduce the levels of three microbes linked to worse outcomes in oral cancers, paving the way for more effective and affordable therapies.

2 min. read

A stiff defense: Rethinking gum disease
A section of healthy human gum tissue captured using an imaging technique called Second Harmonic Generation microscopy. In this sample, collagen fibers (shown in yellow), which give healthy gums their firm, resilient stiffness, are dense and well-organized—acting as a supportive scaffold for the surrounding cells (shown in teal).

A section of healthy human gum tissue captured using an imaging technique called Second Harmonic Generation microscopy. In this sample, collagen fibers (shown in yellow), which give healthy gums their firm, resilient stiffness, are dense and well-organized—acting as a supportive scaffold for the surrounding cells (shown in teal).

(Image: Hardik Makkar)

A stiff defense: Rethinking gum disease

Penn Dental Medicine’s Kyle H. Vining and Hardik Makkar take a biomaterials approach to understanding periodontal disease, using a hydrogel system to investigate how the physical properties of the gum tissue impact inflammation.

3 min. read

Novel plant-based approach to a better, cheaper GLP-1 delivery system
Three researchers in a greenhouse full of lettuce heads.

Researchers, including Rahul Singh (left), in the Daniell lab’s greenhouse where the production of clinical grade transgenic lettuce occurs.

(Image: Henry Daniell)

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.

3 min. read