Bioengineering

Penn fourth-year Om Gandhi is a 2025 Rhodes Scholar

Penn fourth-year Om Gandhi, from Barrington, Illinois, has been awarded a 2025 Rhodes Scholarship, which funds tuition and a living stipend for graduate study at the University of Oxford in England. He is among 32 American Rhodes Scholars, and an expected 100 worldwide.

Louisa Shepard

Developing kidneys from scratch

Bioengineering professor Alex Hughes tackles the burden of chronic kidney disease by creating kidney tissue from scratch, which could reduce the need for both dialysis and transplantation.

Ian Scheffler

Penn’s Gilliam Fellows bridge inclusion and innovation

Two Ph.D. students are among 50 graduate students selected to receive this year’s Howard Hughes Medical Institute Gilliam Fellowship, which advances equity and inclusion in science through a mentorship skills development course.

From Penn Medicine News

Liquid crystals in motion mimic biological systems

Researchers in the lab of Chinedum Osuji have discovered that under the right conditions, liquid crystals form structures reminiscent of biological systems that can transport material from one place to another, much like complex biological systems.

Ian Scheffler

Building solutions for brain disorders

Penn Engineering’s Flavia Vitale’s work developing devices that help people living with brain disorders has earned her a CAREER award, which will support her lab’s research in materials and devices that interface with different chemical and electrical signals inside the brain.

Melissa Pappas



In the News


Rolling Stone

RFK Jr.’s 10 wildest medical theories

Kenneth R. Foster of the School of Engineering and Applied Science says studies haven’t provided clear evidence that exposure to levels of radio frequency energy below accepted limits, such as Wi-Fi, disrupts the blood-brain barrier.

FULL STORY →



Nature

Gut microbes’ genomes are a trove of potential antibiotics

Marcelo Torres of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and colleagues are synthesizing antibiotic microbes from microbiomes in the human gut.

FULL STORY →



Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Smart meter debate: Small group of consumers pushes against a meter mandate in Pennsylvania

Kenneth Foster of the School of Engineering and Applied Science says that the most reliable conclusions are always those of expert panels that conduct systematic reviews according to established procedures.

FULL STORY →



Technology.org

Shedding light on cellular metabolism to fight disease

Yihui Shen of the School of Engineering and Applied Science talks about her newly established lab where she aims to advance the molecular precision of coherent Raman imaging to allow researchers to understand the minutia of metabolism and open doors to new cancer treatments and therapies.

FULL STORY →



CNN

A detailed look at children’s brains might show how sex and gender are different, new study says

A study co-authored by Dani S. Bassett of the School of Engineering and Applied Science finds that sex and gender map onto largely distinct parts of the brain.

FULL STORY →



The New York Times

Can your personal medical devices be recycled?

A lab at the School of Engineering and Applied Science led the development of a COVID test made from bacterial cellulose, an organic compound.

FULL STORY →