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Ultrasound medical education puts insight in hand
ultrasound training boot camp

(Homepage image) Second-year students practice ultrasound-guided IV insertion on specialized manikin arms, supervised by their fourth-year TAs.

Ultrasound medical education puts insight in hand

An integrated four-year ultrasound curriculum helps Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine students build competence and confidence in the classroom and the clinic.

Karen L. Brooks for Penn Medicine Magazine

Understanding the Inflation Reduction Act
Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, and Joe Manchin at a bill signing. Biden is sitting at a desk with the Presidential Seal. Schumer and Manchin are standing behind him. Behind all three are two American flags and a third other flag.

President Joe Biden hands the pen he used to sign the Democrats’ landmark climate change and health care bill to Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022. (Image: AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Understanding the Inflation Reduction Act

Penn experts explain the climate, health care, and economic aspects of the legislation that President Biden signed into law this week, plus the politics of getting it passed.

Katherine Unger Baillie , Michele W. Berger , Kristen de Groot , Dee Patel

A novel method for monitoring the ‘engine’ of pregnancy
fetus in the uterus showing connection to placenta

A novel method for monitoring the ‘engine’ of pregnancy

By combining optical measurements with ultrasound, researchers were able to study oxygen levels in the placenta, paving the way for a better understanding of this complex, crucial organ.

Erica K. Brockmeier , Katherine Unger Baillie

Combating urban heat
Sarah Sterinbach

Combating urban heat

Through the Penn Undergraduate Research Mentoring Program, rising junior Sarah Sterinbach has spent the summer learning about the policies Philadelphia has used to protect its citizens from extreme heat and how those efforts might improve in the future.

Luis Melecio-Zambrano

Inspired by nature, artificial microtubules can work against a current to transport tiny cargoes
graphic of microvascular networks showing how free-swimming microrobots disperse but a microcatheter propels robots against a flow to a target

W

hile free-swimming microrobots have been explored as a way to precisely deliver therapeutics within a blood vessel, they can disperse in the strong flows, failing to reach their target at high enough concentrations. In contrast, microrobots propelled along an artificial microtubule, developed by physicist Arnold Mathijssen and colleagues, can be transported precisely, even working against the current. (Image: Courtesy of Arnold Mathijssen/Nature Machine Intelligence)

Inspired by nature, artificial microtubules can work against a current to transport tiny cargoes

Technology developed by Arnold Mathijssen of the School of Arts & Sciences and colleagues could one day clear blockages in blood vessels or precisely target chemotherapy drugs to a tumor.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Deconstructing the mechanics of bone marrow disease
microscopic image of an immune cell labeled purple against a gray background

Acollaborative team developed an alginate-based hydrogel system that mimics the viscoelasticity of the natural extracellular matrix in bone marrow. By tweaking the balance between elastic and viscous properties in these artificial ECMs, they could recapitulate the viscoelasticity of healthy and scarred fibrotic bone marrow, and study the effects on human monocytes placed into these artificial ECMs. (Image: Adam Graham/Harvard CNS/Wyss Institute at Harvard University)

Deconstructing the mechanics of bone marrow disease

A new understanding of how mechanical features of bone marrow affect resident immune cells in a fibrotic cancer points to future therapeutic strategies for cancers and fibrotic diseases.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Music-making and the flow of aerosols
Person playing a tuba in a dark room with a green laser shedding light on water mist

Members of The Philadelphia Orchestra, including Carol Jantsch, principal tuba player, took part in a study led by Penn scientists Paulo Arratia and Douglas Jerolmack. Their investigation examined the aerosols professional musicians generate as they play. (Image: Courtesy of Paulo Arratia)

Music-making and the flow of aerosols

If simply breathing can spread the SARS-CoV-2 virus to others nearby, what about blowing into a tuba? Researchers from the School of Engineering the School of Arts & Sciences used fluid mechanics to study the movement of aerosols generated by musicians.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Shapeshifting microrobots can brush and floss teeth
Graphic shows how nanoparticle-based microrobots can remove dental plaque from teeth with their motion and the activity of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) to kill microbes

Shapeshifting microrobots can brush and floss teeth

In a proof-of-concept study, researchers from the School of Dental Medicine and School of Engineering and Applied Science shows that a hands-free system could effectively automate the treatment and removal of tooth-decay-causing bacteria and dental plaque.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Identities in harmony: How Beth Burton integrates the personal with the professional
A woman with purple hair sits at a piano and stares off into the distance.

Beth Burton, a graduate student at the Perelman School of Medicine, has degrees in both music and science. Even as a full-time researcher, she still finds time to play piano. Image: Courtesy of Beth Burton.

Identities in harmony: How Beth Burton integrates the personal with the professional

The doctoral candidate in the Perelman School of Medicine is a scientist studying the genetic causes of Alzheimer’s. She’s also a musician, a queer woman, and a voice for those with genetic disorders.

Luis Melecio-Zambrano