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Building bridges: A feat of engineering and artistry
The Glass Bridge

Architect Masoud Akbarzadeh and research assistant Boyu Xiao of the Weitzman School of Design, along with collaborators including Yao Lu of Jefferson University, defied conventional engineering by constructing a 30-foot-long bridge entirely from 16 millimeter hollow glass units. Their effort is now showcased at the Corning Museum of Glass.

(Image: Courtesy of the Corning Museum of Glass)

Building bridges: A feat of engineering and artistry

At the Corning Museum of Glass, professor of architecture Masoud Akbarzadeh and his team have turned fragility into strength with a 30-foot-long span of shimmering glass, blending ancient wisdom with cutting-edge design to redefine the future of structural engineering and architecture.

9 min. read

Getting to the root of root canals
Person receiving treatment in a dental clinic.

Image: Courtesy of Penn Dental Medicine/Peter Olson Photography

Getting to the root of root canals

Penn researchers use iron oxide nanozymes to treat infections during root canals with fewer adverse effects than clinical gold standard while also promoting tissue healing.
‘JeepyTA’ has entered the chat
Rachel Liu sitting at a counter with her laptop.

Rachel Liu, a first-year doctoral candidate in the Graduate School of Education.

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‘JeepyTA’ has entered the chat

At Penn’s Graduate School of Education, the Penn Center for Learning Analytics is piloting an AI teaching assistant that fields students’ syllabus questions, generates assignment feedback, and eases the stress of instructors’ and TAs’ emailing schedules.
Stentix wins the 2025 Y-Prize
Winners of Penn’s 2025 Y-Prize holding their certificates.

The Stentix team (top) Summer Cobb and Amanda Kossoff, (bottom) Aarsha Shah and Elizabeth Jia, with judges (descending left) Matt Fitz-Henry, Jason Smith, Jennifer Gilburg, and Sasha Schrode, and (descending right) David Hsu, Gerald Lopez, and Dean Miller.

(Image: Courtesy of the William and Phyllis Mack Institute for Innovation Management)

Stentix wins the 2025 Y-Prize

The winning team of Penn Engineering’s annual award for entrepreneurial technology have created a noninvasive mechanism to adjust medical stent positioning using magnetic reconfiguration.

From the William and Phyllis Mack Institute for Innovation Management

Is Moore’s Law really dead?
A semiconductor wafer.

According to Moore’s Law, the number of transistors on an integrated circuit will double every two years.

(Image: iStock/SweetBunFactory)

Is Moore’s Law really dead?

Penn Engineering’s Ben Lee and André DeHon discuss Moore’s Law, the observation that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit will double every two years with minimal rise in cost, and reflect on the consequences and opportunities of its possible end.

Devorah Fischler

Quantum communications
 3D rendering of artist's interpretation of quantum entanglement.

Leveraging principles of quantum mechanics to securely transmit messages has promised a revolution in encryption, keeping sensitive information secure. Now, a collaborative team of researchers including the School of Engineering and Applied Science’s Liang Feng and Ph.D. candidate Yichi Zhang have developed a system that enables more stable, robust, high-efficiency, and long-range quantum communication—paving the way for practical, high-dimensional quantum networks.

(Image: Courtesy of Jian Fan)

Quantum communications

Penn and CUNY researchers collaborated to develop a device that uses quantum principles to relay information securely—an advance that could improve encryption in critical service areas like banking and health care.
Borrowing nature’s blueprint: How scientists replicated bone marrow
A chip with bioengineered bone marrow.

The new chip will allow for automated experiments, and can be connected to chip-based models of other organ systems, like the lungs.

(Image: Dan Huh)

Borrowing nature’s blueprint: How scientists replicated bone marrow

A collaborative research team from Penn Engineering, Penn Medicine, and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia have developed a chip that mimics human bone marrow.

Ian Scheffler

BEND lipids improve LNP mRNA delivery and gene editing
A gloved hand holding a beaker of lipids in a lab.

A sample of the new lipids, which improve the success rate of lipid nanoparticles delivering their contents.

(Image: Sylvia Zhang)

BEND lipids improve LNP mRNA delivery and gene editing

Penn Engineering researchers have developed a new class of lipids called branched endosomal disruptor (BEND) lipids to better deliver mRNA and gene-editing tools.

Ian Scheffler