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Bioengineering

New microfluidic device delivers mRNA nanoparticles a hundred times faster
An etched silicon and glass wafer on a surface with a quarter beside it for scale.

The researchers’ new platform technology, called Very Large Scale Microfluidic Integration, allows tens of thousands of microfluidic units to be incorporated into a single three-dimensionally etched silicon-and-glass wafer. (Image: Penn Engineering Today)

New microfluidic device delivers mRNA nanoparticles a hundred times faster

With a “liquid assembly line,” Penn researchers have produced mRNA-delivering-nanoparticles significantly faster than standard microfluidic technologies.

Evan Lerner

‘I Look Like an Engineer’
clockwise) Nyasha Zimunhu, Fahmida Lubna, Celestina Saven, Sanjana Hemdev, Sabrina Green and Sydney Kariuki

Penn Engineering students (clockwise) Nyasha Zimunhu, Fahmida Lubna, Celestina Saven, Sanjana Hemdev, Sabrina Green and Sydney Kariuki all participated in the “I Look Like an Engineer” campaign, locally organized by AWE. (Image: Penn Engineering Today)

‘I Look Like an Engineer’

For the third year in a row, Penn Engineering’s Advancing Women in Engineering program, dedicated to recruiting, retaining and promoting all female-identified students in the School, participated in the “I Look Like an Engineer” social media movement.

From Penn Engineering Today

Becoming a bioengineer, both at home and on campus
electrocardiogram modules This year, the electrocardiogram (ECG) module was redesigned in a way that allowed both in-person and at-home students to create a device to measure their heart rate. These types of innovations also provide new ways to think about STEM education and distance learning more broadly. (Image: Bioengineering Educational Lab)

Becoming a bioengineer, both at home and on campus

This spring, the Bioengineering Modeling, Analysis, and Design lab was able to safely resume in-person instruction while adapting its curriculum to keep remote learners engaged.

Erica K. Brockmeier

Looking towards the future through an interdisciplinary lens
a portrait of Yasmina Al Ghadban

Looking towards the future through an interdisciplinary lens

Senior Yasmina Al Ghadban was able to connect her undergraduate education in bioengineering and psychology with her passion for public health through teaching, research, and extracurricular activities.

Erica K. Brockmeier

Science vs science: The contradictory fight over whether electromagnetic hypersensitivity is real

Science vs science: The contradictory fight over whether electromagnetic hypersensitivity is real

Electromagnetic fields are everywhere, and especially so in recent years. To most of us, those fields are undetectable. But a small number of people believe they have an actual allergy to electromagnetic fields. Ken Foster, a professor emeritus of bioengineering, has heard these arguments before.  “Activists would point to all these biological effects studies and say, ‘There must be some hazard’; health agencies would have meticulous reviews of literature and not see much of a problem.”

This L.A. start-up is building tiny injectable robots to attack tumors

This L.A. start-up is building tiny injectable robots to attack tumors

Marc Miskin of the School of Engineering and Applied Science commented on a new startup that is developing remote-control medical microrobots. “I would give them a lot of credit for figuring out a space where they can make an impact and justify how they’ll be competitive with traditional pharmaceutical approaches,” he said.

New bioprinting technique allows for complex microtissues
A rendering of tissue forming a hydrogel in three steps.

The researchers’ new technique allows clumps of cells to be picked and placed into a self-healing hydrogel, which holds them in complex spatial arrangements as they grow together. Once the tissue model is formed, the hydrogel is washed away. (Image: Penn Engineering Today)

New bioprinting technique allows for complex microtissues

Researchers at the School of Engineering and Applied Science have demonstrated a new bioprinting technique that enables the bioprinting of spatially complex, high-cell-density tissues.

Evan Lerner

Penn Dental, Penn Engineering unite to form Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry
Time lapse photo of green circle shows a progressively larger cleared off area where a robot has removed a biofilm

With a precise, controlled movement, microrobots clear a glass plate of a biofilm in this time-lapse sequence.

(Image: Geelsu Hwang and Edward Steager)

Penn Dental, Penn Engineering unite to form Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry

The new Center will bring the two schools together to accelerate the development of new solutions and devices to address unmet needs in oral health.

Beth Adams