Combined Treatment Takes a Bite Out of Tooth Decay News / October 20, 2023 The sting of a toothache or the discovery of a cavity is a universal dread. Dental caries, more commonly known as tooth decay, is an insidious adversary, taking a toll on millions of mouths worldwide. Caries can lead to pain, tooth loss, infection, and, in severe cases, even death. While... Read More
The Tertuliano Lab Has a Bone To Pick — And the Tools To Explain How It Breaks News / September 27, 2023 Lightweight, tough and strong, our bones are forces of nature. Ottman Tertuliano joined the faculty of Penn Engineering last year to study bone as both a resilient living tissue and sophisticated organic material. AMA Family Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, Tertuliano creates new tools... Read More
Silicon Ally: Penn Engineers Grow Full Wafers of High-Performing 2D Semiconductor That Integrates With State-of-the-Art Chips News / September 19, 2023 The semiconductor industry today is working to respond to a threefold mandate: increasing computing power, decreasing chip sizes and managing power in densely packed circuits. To meet these demands, the industry must look beyond silicon to produce devices appropriate for the growing role of computing. While unlikely to abandon the... Read More
Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry Positions Penn as a Leader in Engineering Health News / September 18, 2023 Penn’s Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CiPD) is the first cross-disciplinary initiative in the nation to unite oral-craniofacial health sciences and engineering. An institutional partnership formalizing the Center’s dual affiliation between the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science and School of Dental Medicine makes CiPD unique.... Read More
An Improved Delivery System for mRNA Vaccines Provides More Powerful Protection News / August 29, 2023 The COVID-19 vaccine swiftly undercut the worst of the pandemic for hundreds of millions around the world. Available sooner than almost anyone expected, these vaccines were a triumph of resourcefulness and skill.Messenger RNA vaccines, like the ones manufactured by Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech, owed their speed and success to decades of... Read More
The Physics of Fat Droplets Reveal DNA Danger News / August 28, 2023 Fat is a normal and necessary part of the body. Fat cells store and release energy, as well as play significant roles in hormonal regulation and immunity. In recent decades, a concerning rise in metabolic illnesses – such as cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and diabetes – has focused scientific... Read More
Penn Engineers Create Low-Cost, Eco-Friendly COVID Test News / August 25, 2023 The availability of rapid, accessible testing was integral to overcoming the worst surges of the COVID-19 pandemic, and will be necessary to keep up with emerging variants. However, these tests come with unfortunate costs. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, the “gold standard” for diagnostic testing, are hampered by waste. They... Read More
For a New Generation of Antibiotics, Scientists are Bringing Extinct Molecules Back to Life – and Discovering the Hidden Genetics of Immunity Along the Way News / August 16, 2023 “We need to think big in antibiotics research,” says Cesar de la Fuente. “Over one million people die every year from drug-resistant infections, and this is predicted to reach 10 million by 2050. There hasn’t been a truly new class of antibiotics in decades, and there are so few of... Read More
Scaling Up Atomic Innovation at the NSF’s Center for the Mechanical Control of Chemistry (CMCC) News / August 14, 2023 Mechanical chemistry, or mechanochemistry, is the crushing of chemicals to produce reactions and substances. For instance, diamonds are created when carbon is squeezed under enormous pressure inside the Earth, and similarly, crushing together two or more compounds with a mortar and pestle can result in a range of different chemicals.... Read More
CNN Features Penn Engineering AI Research News / July 27, 2023 Artificial intelligence has made exponential leaps in its ability to produce text that looks and sounds like human-generated writing. Research shows, however, that machine-generated text is far from undetectable. Yes, AI detection software is available and continuously improving. But computer scientists from the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and... Read More
