School of Engineering & Applied Science

By Patrick Ammerman A new University of Pennsylvania effort is bringing genomics into high school classrooms through a free online resource. The goal is to make it easier for science teachers to incorporate the latest advances in science into their curricula.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded the University of Pennsylvania a $24 Million, five-year grant to establish a Science and Technology Center (STC) focused on engineering mechanobiology, or the way cells exert and are influenced by the physical forces in their environment. This award is part of an overall $94 million from NSF to support four new STCs.

Just as summer was winding down, around the time when many students were wrapping up internships and checking packing lists for a return to campus, 13 University of Pennsylvania undergraduates flew across an ocean and began acclimating to the thin air of the Swiss and Italian Alps.

Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania has named 25 undergraduates as the inaugural cohort of World House Student Fellows.  The group of sophomores, juniors and seniors will participate each week in seminars, research projects, leadership opportunities and activities focused on pressing global issues. 

A flurry of coordinated activity in a brain-spanning network of neurons may sound like the formation of a brilliant new idea, but it is actually the description of a seizure. Understanding why and how this synchronization spreads would be a critical tool in treating severe epilepsy.

Undergraduate students at the University of Pennsylvania are becoming diplomats-in-training who develop innovative policy through a non-partisan organization, the Penn Diplomacy and Policy Council. 

A team of University of Pennsylvania researchers has developed a computer model that will aid in the design of nanocarriers, microscopic structures used to guide drugs to their targets in the body.

The bacteria that live in dental plaque and contribute to tooth decay often resist traditional antimicrobial treatment, as they can “hide” within a sticky biofilm matrix, a glue-like polymer scaffold.

Spending the summer taking classes and working in the University of Pennsylvania admissions office and as a research assistant is giving rising sophomore Andrea Ning an opportunity to stretch her mind and expand her interests.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed the first placenta-on-a-chip that can fully model the transport of nutrients across the placental barrier.