Nanotechnology

Researchers reach new heights with light-based levitation

Penn researchers are working to engineer nanoscale features on ultra-lightweight materials, finding the ideal combination that will allow those materials to lift themselves into the air using the energy provided by light.

Evan Lerner

A new platform for creating material blends

A novel way to rapidly create and characterize blends of polymers, nanoparticles, and other materials could significantly accelerate material development.

Evan Lerner

Nanoparticles can turn off genes in bone marrow

Using specialized nanoparticles, researchers from Penn Engineering and MIT have developed a way to turn off specific genes in cells of bone marrow, which play an important role in producing blood cells. 

From Penn Engineering Today

Engineers manipulate color on the nanoscale, making it disappear

A new system of nanoscale semiconductor strips uses structural color interactions to eliminate the strips’ intrinsic color entirely, with implications for holographic displays and optical sensors, or new types of microlasers and detectors.

From Penn Engineering Today



In the News


Technical.ly Philly

These Philly profs working on VR education, deepfake spotters, and tiny robots make predictions for next-gen tech

Mark Miskin of the School of Engineering and Applied Science is using tools from the semiconductor industry to develop nanotechnologies for microscopic robots.

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Physics World

Liquid crystals bring robotics to the microscale

In collaboration with the University of Ljubljana, Kathleen Stebe of the School of Engineering and Applied Science has built a swimming microrobot that paddles by rotating liquid crystal molecules.

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iTech Post

University of Pennsylvania researchers develop microrobots that can brush, floss your teeth

Hun Michel Koo of the School of Dental Medicine, Edward Steager of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and colleagues have created automated shapeshifting microrobots with the ability to brush, floss, and rinse teeth.

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Philadelphia Business Journal

Penn spinout Capstan Therapeutics launches with $165M and an all-star lineup of founders

Capstan Therapeutics, a Penn spinout whose founders include Carl June, Bruce Levine, and Drew Weissman of the Perelman School of Medicine, has launched with $165 million raised to develop a new type of CAR therapy that incorporates mRNA.

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Philadelphia Inquirer

Philadelphia science prize goes to climate change and electronics researchers from Penn, UCLA

Charles Kane and Eugene Mele of the School of Arts and Sciences have been honored with the John Scott Award, given annually to innovators in science, for their work developing ways to predict the behavior of atomic particles.

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