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Translating groundbreaking scientific discoveries into practical technologies
a cartoon of four researchers one with a notebook, one looking through a microscope, one injecting liquid into a test tube, and one looking at two flasks

Translating groundbreaking scientific discoveries into practical technologies

Amidst the numerous challenges posed by COVID-19, the Penn Center for Innovation has continued to facilitate impactful innovations created at Penn, fostering partnerships and helping to realize new products and businesses.

Erica K. Brockmeier

Five things to know about the promising COVID-19 vaccine news
Health care worker prepares to give patient a vaccine injection

Five things to know about the promising COVID-19 vaccine news

Drew Weissman of the Perelman School of Medicine, whose work is a key factor helping to enable two vaccines in late stages of testing, sheds light on the biology behind them and on his predictions about next steps in vaccine development and approval.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Penn nanoparticles are less toxic to T cells engineered for cancer immunotherapy
An artist’s illustration of nanoparticles transporting mRNA into a T cell, allowing the latter to express surface receptors that recognize cancer cells.

An artist’s illustration of nanoparticles transporting mRNA into a T cell (blue), allowing the latter to express surface receptors that recognize cancer cells (red). (Image: Ryan Allen, Second Bay Studios)

Penn nanoparticles are less toxic to T cells engineered for cancer immunotherapy

By using messenger RNA across the T cell’s membrane via a nanoparticle instead of a DNA-rewriting virus on extracted T cells, CAR T treatments could have fewer side effects.

Penn Today Staff

How plants cope with stress
an irrigation field with minimal crops growing

Irrigated crops can grow with less water but are typically subject to increased salts leached out of the surrounding soil, which can put a dent in productivity. A new study led by Penn biologists has uncovered a way plants respond to salt stress—a pathway that could be manipulated to engineer more tolerant crops.

How plants cope with stress

With climate change comes drought, and with drought comes higher salt concentrations in the soil. Brian Gregory and graduate student Stephen Anderson have identified a mechanism by which plants respond to salt stress, a pathway that could be targeted to engineer more adaptable crops.