Science & Technology

University of Pennsylvania senior Steve Scarfone and junior Jeffrey Ng are part of a local community-engagement project that mixes volunteering and increasing access to learning through Penn Science Across Ages.

When the human genome was first sequenced, experts predicted they would find about 100,000 genes. The actual number has turned out to be closer to 20,000, just a few thousand more than fruit flies have. The question logically arose: how can a relatively small number of genes lay the blueprint for the complexities of the human body?

Interdisciplinary research at the University of Pennsylvania is showing how cells interact over long distances within fibrous tissue, like that associated with many diseases of the liver, lungs and other organs.

At the turn of the millennium, the cost to sequence a single human genome exceeded $50 million, and the process took a decade to complete. Microbes have genomes, too, and the first reference genome for a malaria parasite was completed in 2002 at a cost of roughly $15 million. But today researchers can sequence a genome in a single afternoon for just a few thousand dollars.

Professors James Eberwine, of the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and Shu Yang, of Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, have been

By Christina Cook

Origami is capable of turning a simple sheet of paper into a pretty paper crane, but the principles behind the paper-folding art can also be applied to making a microfluidic device for a blood test, or for storing a satellite's solar panel in a rocket’s cargo bay.   

Researchers at Penn Medicine, in collaboration with a multi-center international team, have shown that a protease inhibitor, simeprevir, a once a day pill, along with interferon and ribavirin has proven as effective in treating chronic Hepatitis C virus infection (HCV) as telaprevir with interferon and ribavirin, the standard of care in developing countries.

Drawing from the seemingly disparate fields of economics, electrical engineering, and computer science, Rakesh Vohra’s work requires the support of an institution resolutely committed to interdisciplinary research—a level of commitment he says few institutions beyond Penn have.

By Madeleine Stone  @themadstone