Month: July 2025

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Engineering a Healthier Heart: Noor Momin Receives AHA Transformational Project Award

When someone survives a heart attack, the battle isn’t always over. In fact, nearly one-third of survivors go on to develop heart failure—a progressive weakening of the heart muscle that affects millions and contributes to roughly 500,000 deaths in the U.S. each year.

Dr. Noor Momin, the Stephenson Foundation Term Assistant Professor of Innovation in Bioengineering at Penn, is working to change that. Her lab’s innovative approach to immune modulation after heart attacks has just been recognized with the prestigious American Heart Association (AHA) Transformational Project Award for 2025. This award supports groundbreaking ideas that hold the potential to significantlya dvance cardiovascular and cerebrovascular research. (See award criteria.)

(Photo Credit: Mark Griffey, Penn Engineering)

A Targeted Strategy to Prevent Heart Failure

Following a heart attack, the immune system springs into action to repair damaged tissue. But when that response lingers or becomes excessive, it can cause additional harm—like a repair crew overstaying its welcome and inadvertently worsening the damage.

Momin’s lab is developing a targeted strategy using cytokines to control this immune response. Cytokines are used by immune cells to communicate with each other and other cells. Instead of delivering just a cytokine, which can lead to harmful side effects in healthy tissues, they’ve re-engineered it to home to damaged heart tissue. Early preclinical tests have shown that this approach can prevent heart failure with minimal side effects. 

The lab is now focused on conducting further dose and treatment schedule optimization, safety and mechanistic studies to move the technology towards clinical translation.

This line of research could lead to a fundamentally new way to prevent heart failure in heart attack survivors, directly supporting the American Heart Association’s mission to help people live longer, healthier lives.

From Seed to Solution: The Role of CPE4H

This transformative research began with a spark: seed funding from the Penn Center for Precision Engineering for Health (CPE4H).

“The seed grant was crucial for getting our project off the ground right after we moved to One uCity in the summer of 2024,” Momin explains. “Having those funds immediately available allowed us to start research without delay and maintain momentum in gathering preliminary data. This work directly led to securing AHA funding in under a year – which is exceptionally fast for translational research. The seed grant essentially jump started everything. We’re really grateful for that support.”

That rapid trajectory is exactly what the CPE4H aims to support.

“Noor’s success with the American Heart Association proposal is very exciting to me and the center,” says Daniel A. Hammer, Inaugural Director of CPE4H and the Alfred G. and Meta A. Ennis Professor for Bioengineering and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. “Noor’s work embodies the principles of the CPE4H – using engineering principles to develop therapies that have real consequences for human health, in this case cardiovascular disease. In addition, it’s particularly gratifying that we can support and initiate funding for an Assistant Professor who is at the early stages of her career.”

Engineering Innovation, Saving Lives

As Dr. Momin’s project progresses, it offers a glimpse into a future where heart attack survivors have better tools to prevent the onset of heart failure—tools born from innovative thinking and catalyzed by early support.

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Engineering a Healthier Future: Kelsey Swingle’s Journey from Penn to Rice

Precision medicine. Women’s health. RNA therapeutics. Kelsey Swingle’s next chapter advances science that can’t wait.

On July 1, Kelsey Swingle, Ph.D., officially joined Rice University as an Assistant Professor in Bioengineering, a remarkable leap directly from doctoral training to a tenure track faculty position. She’s not just launching a lab, she’s continuing a mission shaped at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Precision Engineering for Health (CPE4H).

The new paper’s lead author Kelsey Swingle (GrEng’27) at work in the lab. (Credit: Kevin Monko)

At CPE4H Swingle’s research pioneered new ways to deliver mRNA therapeutics using lipid nanoparticles, with applications that go as far as treating deadly pregnancy complications like pre-eclampsia.

“Kelsey’s unique application is to use these technologies to treat specific diseases, such as to target the placenta during pregnancy,” said Daniel A. Hammer, Inaugural Director of CPE4H. “Her work is a wonderful combination of precise molecular delivery applied to a real problem in human health.”

In a world where reproductive health remains chronically underfunded and underserved, Swingle’s research targets a profound gap. Her innovations hold promise for early intervention in pregnancy disorders, pushing the boundaries of what medicine can treat and when.

Kelsey was trained in Michael Mitchell’s lab at Penn Bioengineering.

“Mike has continuously guided and supported me, and gave me the unique opportunity to launch a new research area in the Mitchell Lab focused on women’s health,” Swingle said.

But her impact extended far beyond science. Swingle played a pivotal role in Penn’s translational research community, through platforms like the CPE4H Focus Friday seminars and cross-lab collaboration in the UCity space, environments designed to accelerate innovation at the intersection of engineering and medicine.

“I’ve found that one of the biggest challenges during graduate school is the opportunity to wear multiple hats—as a student, researcher, scientist, mentee, mentor, friend, and role model—which can feel really overwhelming and daunting, especially in the beginning. I clearly remember sharing these feelings with Mike during the second year of my Ph.D., and he encouraged me to focus on executing good science and being a team player, and to have confidence everything else would work itself out,” Swigle shared. “Now that I’ve accepted a faculty position, everything has worked out even better than I could have anticipated.”

“Kelsey is the complete scholar. She is extremely hard working and creative in her research, and is always looking for new areas to grow and challenge herself. But she is also an incredible teacher and mentor of the next generation. It is rare to start an independent faculty position right after completing a PhD, but Kelsey is absolutely ready for it and will hit the ground running,” observed Michael Mitchell, Associate Professor for Penn Bioengineering.

Research team from left to right includes Kelsey Swingle, Hannah Safford, Alex Hamilton, Ajay Thatte, Hannah Geisler, and Mike Mitchell. (Credit: Penn Engineering)

Now, at Rice, Swingle will launch the Swingle Lab, carrying forward a research agenda that sits at the interface of biomaterials, immune engineering, and reproductive biology. The stakes? Future therapies for complex and under-treated conditions — with global impact.

“I’m a big believer that cutting-edge research takes a team of great people that are eager to work together,” Swingle said. “I’m excited to explore opportunities to collaborate and learn from everyone in Rice Bioengineering and the broader scientific community at the Texas Medical Center in Houston.”

For Penn, Swingle’s story reaffirms its mission to train the next generation of engineers not only to innovate, but to lead.

“Because Kelsey will, in turn, train students and postdoctoral associates in her own laboratory, her career has an important, multiplicative effect on the influence of the center broadly across the scientific community,” Hammer emphasized.

“Kelsey has done an incredible job here at Penn Bioengineering, CPE4H, and the Mitchell Lab. I’m very hopeful that her faculty position at top-10 ranked Rice Bioengineering will enable her to make important contributions to the fields of drug delivery and women’s health, ” shared Mitchell.

Kelsey Swingle is more than a rising star. She’s a catalyst, proving what happens when the right minds are given the creative freedom, mentorship, and mission to engineer a more equitable and personalized future for healthcare.