School of Engineering & Applied Science

In order for cancer to spread, malignant cells must break away from a tumor and through the tough netting of extracellular matrix, or ECM, that surrounds it. To fit through the holes in this net, those cancerous cells must elongate into a torpedo-like shape.

A team is using commercially available nanotechnology to develop a low-cost, handheld diagnostic device that can monitor HIV. This device would increase access to high-quality treatment of HIV in developing countries and lower the cost of health care in the U.S.

University of Pennsylvania researchers are now among the first to produce a single, three-atom-thick layer of a unique two-dimensional material called tungsten ditelluride. Their findings have been published in 2-D Materials.

Nanoscale structures have properties that can’t be achieved in any other way, stemming from precise control over the structure’s composition and geometry. Unfortunately, simultaneously achieving high levels of control of both characteristics can be challenging.

University of Pennsylvania senior Lucy Chai of Acton, Mass., has received a Churchill Scholarship from the Winston Churchill Foundation.  She is among 15 recipients of the honor, awarded annually to American students to fund a year of master’s study in science, mathematics and engineering

The round worm Caenorhabditis elegans, a nematode, is a puzzling creature.

Four hundred years after the death of dramatist William Shakespeare, enduring questions remain about whether the Bard of Avon had an uncredited co-writer on some of his world-famous plays. A team of Penn researchers has found an answer—in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, of all places.

Nearly two years out from the first awarding of the University of Pennsylvania President’s Engagement Prizes, communities in the United States and around the world are beginning to reap the benefits.

Interactions between an animal cell and its immediate environment, a fibrous network called the extracellular matrix, play a critical role in cell function, including growth and migration. But less understood is the mechanical force that governs those interactions.

Graphene, a two-dimensional form of carbon in sheets just one atom in thick, has been the subject of widespread research, in large part because of its unique combination of strength, electrical conductivity and chemical stability.