School of Engineering & Applied Science

The roundworm C. elegans is one of the most important model organisms in biological research. With a transparent, millimeter-long body containing only about a thousand cells and a lifespan of a few weeks, there is no better way of deciphering the role of a given gene on a living creature’s anatomy or behavior.

Mark Licurse didn’t know what to expect when he decided to group together middle schoolers from two very different schools for a week-long STEM Summer Science Camp held by the Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter at the University of Pennsylvania.

Laws of perception explain why people see the world the way they do.

Through origami-inspired engineering, one researcher hopes to not only create rapidly fabricable robots, but also build intuitive design software that enables others who may not be trained in engineering to create their own personalized robots.

By Erica AndersenYann Pfitzer spent the heat of a Philadelphia summer in a lab, designing and testing ultrathin plates that could one day be part of systems that convert extreme heat to electricity.

When Charles Wang, a student at the University of Pennsylvania, was growing up, he wanted to be a video-game designer. As he headed to college, he came to believe he would have to trade in this goal for a more common profession.

The vast majority of genetic mutations that are associated with disease occur at sites in the genome that aren’t genes. These sequences of DNA don’t code for proteins themselves, but provide an additional layer of instructions that determine if and when particular genes are expressed.

by Erica Andersen

On launching the Penn Wharton China Center in Beijing, in March of 2015, University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann said, “We are building on Penn's history of broad, deep eng

One reason cancer is so difficult to treat is that it avoids detection by the body. Agents of the immune system are constantly checking the surfaces of cells for chemical signals that say they belong, but cancer cells express the same chemical signals as healthy ones. Without a way for the immune system to tell the difference, little stands in the way of cancer taking over.