Innovation

mRNA scientists Drew Weissman, the Roberts Family Professor of Vaccine Research in Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, and Katalin Karikó, an adjunct professor of neurosurgery at Penn and a senior vice president at BioNTech. (Image: Courtesy of Penn Medicine)

The Center for Precision Engineering for Health will bring together researchers spanning multiple scientific fields to develop novel therapeutic biomaterials, such as a drug-delivering nanoparticles that can be designed to adhere to only to the tissues they target. (Image: Courtesy of the Mitchell Lab)

Bijels, or bicontinuous interfacially jammed emulsion gels, are structured emulsions of oil and water that are kept separated by a layer of nanoparticles. Penn Engineering researchers will develop a way of using them to manufacture mRNA-based therapeutics. (Image: Penn Engineering Today)

The researchers’ artificial chromatophores consist of membranes stretched over circular cavities attached to pneumatic pumps. Pressurizing the cavity stretches the membrane, changing the pitch of the helix-shaped liquid crystal inside. Correlating the relationship between diameter, pressure, pitch and color, the researchers are able to treat each cavity like pixel, shifting its color to match the surrounding pattern in this demonstration from their recent study.

Twenty-five years ago, Drew Weissman and Katalin Karikó struck up their first conversations at Penn by a copy machine, where both were printing journal articles. That chance encounter laid the foundation for a revolution in mRNA technology, innovations that are now being leveraged to confront a host of biomedical challenges. (Image: Peggy Peterson)

HUP patient Stacy Haley received free-flap reconstruction surgery after receiving a double mastectomy. (Image: Penn Medicine News)