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From one gene switch, many possible outcomes
Aman Husbands inspects plants in his lab

Eric Sucar

From one gene switch, many possible outcomes

A team of researchers led by Aman Husbands of the School of Arts & Sciences has uncovered surprising ways transcription factors—the genetic switches for genes—regulate plant development, revealing how subtle changes in a lipid-binding region can dramatically alter gene regulation.
Penn solutions to climate change
Banner that reads climate week at Penn

At a Climate Week event, Penn’s Climate Solutions Showcase, a group of faculty and researchers from the School of Engineering and Applied Science and Weitzman School of Design presented innovative strategies to combat the causes and effects of climate change.

(Image: Felice Macera)

Penn solutions to climate change

As society grapples with the impacts of a worsening climate—from the increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events to rising sea levels and deadly heat waves—the need for actionable solutions has never been greater, Penn researchers say.
Takeaways: The new mini moon
Visualization of 2024PT5's orbit around the sun temporarily joining Earth's.

On Sunday, Sept. 29, Earth welcomed 2024 PT5, a “mini-moon” temporarily captured by the planet’s orbit that’s set to depart on Monday, Nov. 25.

(Image: Courtesy of NASA/JPL)

Takeaways: The new mini moon

Last month Earth welcomed a visitor known as 2024 PT5. To learn more about this celestial guest, Penn Today caught up with two astronomers in the School of Arts & Sciences, Gary Bernstein and Bhuvnesh Jain.
How is the world working to save biodiversity?
Three women sit at tables in front of an audience. A Zoom screen with three additional speakers is behind them.

Kathleeen Morrison, Fernanda Jiménez, and Julie Ellis present to the Penn community at CLALS. The program was also available to online participants; behind them, Carolina Angel Botero, Emilio Latorre, and Keith Russell present via Zoom.

nocred

How is the world working to save biodiversity?

A Sept. 18 panel hosted by the Environmental Innovations Initiative and the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies discussed local and global initiatives.

Kristina García

Novel coupled nanopore platform offers greater precision for detecting molecules
Artist depiction of DNA moving through a nanopore system.

Marija Drndić of the School of Arts & Sciences and Dimitri Monos of the Perelman School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia led a team of researchers who developed a new nanostructure platform that allows for more precise detection and control of biomolecules, such as DNA and proteins. This exciting new platform signals a new era of synthetic biology, paving the way for enhanced DNA sequencing and protein conformation detection.

(Image: Courtesy of artist) 

Novel coupled nanopore platform offers greater precision for detecting molecules

An interdisciplinary team of researchers from Penn have created the first ever reusable coupled nanopore platform for detecting and guiding molecules, findings could pave the way for much improved DNA sequencing and molecule identification.
Does heat travel differently in tight spaces?
Green-tinted image showing thermal plumes in a Hele-Shaw cell, illustrating heat transfer in confined spaces.

Hugo Ulloa and Daisuke Noto of the School of Arts & Sciences have unearthed findings that address long-standing mysteries in the mechanics of fluids in confined, tight spaces: how their boundaries affect heat as it emanates from one place and dissipates throughout the space. The image above is a lab-scale hydrothermal system modeled utilizing a Hele-Shaw cell of 10 cm tall, 20 cm long and 4 mm gap. The interior of the Hele-Shaw cell is filled with degassed, deionized water heated from the bottom and cooled from above. A green laser sheet crosses the middle plane of the cell to visualize the motions of micro-scale particles seeded on the water, allowing researchers to estimate the fluid velocity and temperature.

 

 

(Image: Courtesy of Daisuke Noto)

Does heat travel differently in tight spaces?

New research led by Penn scientists offers insights into fundamental problems in fluid mechanics, findings that pave the way for more efficient heat transfer in myriad systems.
Penn pioneers a ‘one-pot platform’ to promptly produce mRNA delivery particles
3D illustration showing cross-section of the lipid nanoparticle carrying mRNA of the virus entering a human cell.

Lipid nanoparticles present one of the most advanced drug delivery platforms to shuttle promising therapeutics such as mRNA but are limited by the time it takes to synthesize cationic lipids, a key component. Now, Michael Mitchell and his team at the School of Engineering and Applied Science have developed a faster way to make cationic lipids that are also more versatile, able to carry different kinds of treatments to target specific organs.

(Image: iStock / Dr_Microbe)

Penn pioneers a ‘one-pot platform’ to promptly produce mRNA delivery particles

New lipid platform enables rapid synthesis of molecules that can shuttle therapeutics for a range of diseases with a high degree of organ specificity.
Researchers upend theory about the formation of the Milky Way Galaxy
Visualization of a ‘wrinkly’ halo of stars around the Milky Way.

This image visualizes the Milky Way and its surrounding “halo” of stars. Most stars in the Milky Way lie in the disc (like the Sun, for example), but stars from past collisions end up in the halo, a large “cloud” of stars that extends outwards in all directions. These halo stars have been enhanced in this image, but in reality would be very dim compared to the disc. The halo appears messy and “wrinkly” here, a sign that a merger has occurred relatively recently.

(Image: Halo stars: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, T Donlon et al. 2024; Background Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds: Stefan Payne-Wardenaar)

Researchers upend theory about the formation of the Milky Way Galaxy

New findings by Robyn Sanderson and collaborators suggest galaxy’s last major collision was billions of years later than previously thought.
Fungi on the front lines against environmental injustice
Mycellium growing in soil.

Image: iStock/Kichigin

Fungi on the front lines against environmental injustice

The collective efforts of the Symbiotic Architecture for Environmental Justice research community are making former industrial sites reborn as vibrant community gardens, and safe, green spaces for children to play a reality.

From the Environmental Innovations Initiative