Lyle Ungar on Normalizing Face Masks

As scientists continue to battle the novel coronavirus, public health officials maintain that wearing a face mask is a powerful way to curb the spread of the virus and keep communities safe. However, America has struggled to adopt this change, as compared to other countries that have made wearing a face mask an unremarkable aspect of their culture.

Lyle Ungar, Ph.D.

In an opinion piece for the New York Times, Lyle Ungar, Professor of Computer and Information Science, Angela Duckworth, Rosa Lee and Egbert Chang Professor in Penn Arts & Sciences and the Wharton School, and Ezekiel J. Emanuel, Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy in Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, propose a new approach to increase consistent face mask use among Americans: make wearing a mask “easy,” “understood,” and “expected.”

In their article, Ungar, Duckworth, and Emanuel make reference to communities that provided face masks free of charge for residents and note the decrease in infection in these areas. In addition, they point out how uncertainty about the necessity of face masks in the U.S. has led to public confusion which inhibits trust and use of masks. Finally, the three researchers push for a shift in social norms to embrace wearing a face mask as standard in America for the near future.

Some of Ungar’s recent research is also focused on the pandemic, including a “COVID Twitter map,” created with colleagues at the World Well-Being Project and Penn Medicine’s Center for Digital Health. Their map helps show, in real time, how people across the country perceive the virus and how it is affecting their mental health.

Read more about Ungar, Duckworth, and Emanuel’s strategy for normalizing face masks in their opinion piece for the New York Times.

Originally posted on the Penn Engineering blog.

Lyle Ungar is a Professor of Computer and Information Science (CIS) and a member of the Penn Bioengineering Graduate Group.

Jennifer Phillips-Cremins Promoted to Associate Professor

 

Jennifer Phillips-Cremins, Ph.D.

by Sophie Burkholder

Jennifer Phillips-Cremins, Ph.D., was recently promoted to the tenured position of Associate Professor in Penn’s Department of Bioengineering. Cremins, leads a lab on campus in 3D Epigenomes and Systems Neurobiology.

In a recent piece profiling top technologies to watch in 2020, Cremins spoke to Nature about which technological trends she saw as being important for the year to come. In the panel, which highlighted perspectives from a panel of researchers across several fields, Cremins discussed the increasing relevance of innovations that would allow researchers to study the way that folding patterns within the human genome can influence how genes are expressed in  healthy individuals and misregulated in human disease.

One such innovation is actually employed by the Cremins Lab: light-activated dynamic looping (LADL). This technique uses both CRISPR/Cas9 and optogenetics to induce folding patterns into the genome on demand, using light as a trigger. In doing so, Cremins and her fellow researchers can more efficiently study the patterns of the human genome, and what effects certain folding patterns can have on the gene expression  state of the cell.

Now, with her new promotion, Cremins can continue advancing her research in understanding the genetic and epigenetic mechanisms that regulate neural connections during brain development, with a focus on how that understanding can eventually lead to better treatments of neurological disease. Beyond the lab, she’ll now lead a new Spatial Epigenetics program, bringing together scientists across Penn’s campus to understand how the spatial connections between biomolecules influence biological behavior. She will also continue teaching her hallmark course for Penn Bioengineering undergraduate students, Biological Data Science, and her more advanced graduate-level course in epigenomics. Congratulations, Dr. Cremins!

Connecting Communities Impacted by COVID-19

Three Penn seniors combine their desire to help with their unique skill sets to create Corona Connects, an online platform that connects volunteers with organizations in need of support.

Developed by (from left) Steven Hamel from the School of Engineering and Applied Science, Megan Kyne from the Wharton School, and Hadassah Raskas from the College of Arts & Sciences, Corona Connects bridges the gap between those looking for ways to help and organizations in need of support.

by Erica K. Brockmeier

With college campuses shut due to the novel coronavirus, many students with new-found time on their hands have found themselves asking, “What can I do to help?”

To connect people with organizations that need support, three students have combined their desire to help with the skills they’ve learned both inside and outside the classroom. Developed by Penn seniors Steven Hamel from the School of Engineering and Applied Science, Megan Kyne from the Wharton School, and Hadassah Raskas from the College of Arts & Sciences, the online platform Corona Connects bridges the gap between people looking for ways to help and organizations looking for support.

After returning to her hometown of Silver Spring, Maryland, Raskas was eager to find some way to help but noticed that it was difficult to find opportunities online. With friends and colleagues voicing similar struggles, Raskas reached out to University of Maryland junior Elana Sichel and started putting together a list of organizations in need of help. Then, after reaching out on the Class of 2020 Facebook page about the project, Hamel, from Philadelphia, and Kyne, from Pittsburgh, offered their support to get an online platform up and running.

The team of students quickly realized that there was both a large number of individuals who wanted to find ways to help alongside an unprecedented level of need from numerous types of organizations. “We knew there was need, and we knew there was an availability of people, but the connection was missing, so we built Corona Connects to bridge this gap,” says Raskas.

Continue reading on Penn Today.

Steven Hamel graduated with his B.S.E. in Bioengineering and a Math minor in in 2020 and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Bioengineering.

Penn Postdoctoral Researcher David Lydon-Staley Appointed Assistant Professor in Annenberg School for Communication

by Sophie Burkholder

A Penn Bioengineer will soon join the Annenberg School for Communication as an Assistant Professor of Communication. David Lydon-Staley, Ph.D., recently completed two years as a Postdoctoral Researcher in Penn’s Complex Systems Lab, led by Danielle Bassett, Ph.D., the J. Peter Skirkanich Professor of Bioengineering and Electrical and Systems Engineering.

David Lydon-Staley, Ph.D.

Lydon-Staley started out studying English and Psychology in his undergraduate education, going on to pursue a Ph.D. from Penn State University in Human Development and Family Studies. What brought him to Bassett’s lab was his interest in using cognitive neuroscience to understand the brain patterns and behaviors behind substance abuse and addiction. There, Lydon-Staley examined networks of nicotine withdrawal behaviors, how those behaviors impact each other, and what information they might hold about how to help smokers in their quit attempts. “David’s breadth of interest is only rivalled by his expansive expertise and bottomless enthusiasm,” says Bassett. “I feel incredibly lucky to have had the chance to work with him.”

In his new role at Annenberg, Lydon-Staley will launch the Addiction, Health, and Adolescence Lab, or “AHA!” for short. “My recent work examines engagement with new media during the course of daily life, and how the information sought and encountered relates to both curiosity and substance use,” he says. Lydon-Staley’s new lab will use methods like experience-sampling and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging to understand brain and behavior, while drawing on theories and tools from  communication, psychology, cognitive neuroscience, network science, and more.

Even though Lydon-Staley will be working out of a new school at Penn, he still has plans to continue collaborating with the Bassett Lab. One ongoing project he has with the lab involves studying how curiosity works in everyday life, and another looks at moment-to-moment patterns of cigarette withdrawal in daily smokers. “Working in the Bassett Lab gave me the confidence and ability to stretch my wings, chase ideas across traditional disciplinary lines, learn new skills, and collaborate with creative and capable scientists every day,” says Lydon-Staley. Those are opportunities he hopes to keep chasing and fostering in his new position.

Beyond continuing his prior research from a communication-based angle, Lydon-Staley is also excited to develop new classes in the Annenberg School. “Annenberg is a very special place. It is an active school, with frequent seminars and many vibrant research centers,” he says. Informed and inspired by the breadth of research from Annenberg scholars, Lydon-Staley hopes that he can create classes that focus on the psychology of time and timing in everyday life—topics that he spends a lot of time thinking about himself.

Above all, Lydon-Staley is excited by the opportunity to stay at Penn and continue the kind of versatile and multi-faceted studies that have been the bedrock of his research so far. He hopes to continue expanding his previous work with not only the Engineering School, but the School of Medicine and the Graduate School of Education as well. “The opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration at Penn are unrivaled, and I am constantly in awe of the quality of students here.”

A Record 15 BE Students Receive 2020 NSF Graduate Research Fellowships

The Department of Bioengineering at Penn is incredibly proud of its fifteen current and future graduate student recipients of the 2020 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP). This total surpasses last year’s record of twelve students. In addition, one current student was selected for honorable mention and one additional incoming student has been named a Fullbright Scholar.

The prestigious NSF GRFP program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported fields. Further information about the program can be found on the NSF website. BE is thrilled to congratulate our excellent students on these well-deserved accolades! Continue reading below for a list of 2020 recipients and descriptions of their research.

Current Students:

William Benman

William Benman is a Ph.D. student in the lab of Assistant Professor of Bioengineering, Lukasz Bugaj. His work in the Bugaj lab focuses on developing novel optogenetic tools to control and study cell function.

Paul Gehret

Paul Gehret is a Ph.D. student and Ashton Fellow in the lab of Riccardo Gottardi, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine. Paul works on pediatric cartilage and airway tissue engineering for children with subglottic stenosis. He and his team apply classic tissue engineering principles to the airway.

Rebecca Haley

Rebecca Haley is a Ph.D. student in the lab of Michael J. Mitchell, Skirkanich Assistant Professor of Innovation in Bioengineering. Her current project aims to use polymer and/or lipid nanoparticles for the intracellular delivery of proteins. Successful delivery of proteins (such as antibodies) in this fashion may allow for targeting of previously undruggable intracellular targets.

Patrick John Mulcahey

Patrick John Mulcahey is a Research Assistant and Graduate Student in the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) Epilepsy Research Lab of Douglas A. Coulter, Professor of Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine. His work focuses on developing techniques that combine electrophysiology with two-photon excitation microscopy to study a potential biomarker of the seizure onset zone in models of drug-refractory epilepsy.

Catherine Porter

Catherine Porter is a Ph.D. student in the lab of Alex J. Hughes, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering. She is working on developing high-throughput methods to produce and characterize human-cell-derived kidney organoids for disease modeling and genetic screening. Currently, she is focused on engineering physicochemical control to improve organoid homogeneity.

Sarah Shepherd

Sarah Shepherd is a Ph.D. student who is co-advised in the Michael J. Mitchell lab and the lab of David Issadore, Associate Professor of Bioengineering and Electrical and Systems Engineering (ESE). Her research aims to combine microfabrication with biomaterial design of lipid nanoparticles to address major shortcomings in the field of nanomedicine. Currently, she is prototyping a scale-up microfluidic device to produce lipid nanoparticles for gene therapy.

Michael Tobin

Michael Tobin is a Ph.D. student in the lab of Dennis E. Discher, Robert D. Bent Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (CBE), Bioengineering, and Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics (MEAM). His current research examines phenomena leading to mechano-induced genomic variation in multiple cell subtypes. Through better understanding of characteristic pathways and subsequent cell responses, he hopes to improve treatments for malignant solid tumors.

John Viola, a Ph.D. student in the Hughes lab, was listed as an honorable mention.

Incoming Students:

Additionally, eight NSF GRFP honorees from other institutions will be joining our department in the fall of 2020. We congratulate them as well and look forward to welcoming them to Penn:

Finally, incoming Ph.D. student Dora Racca was awarded a Fullbright Scholarship. Dora will will have rotations in the BIOLines Laboratory of Dongeun (Dan) Huh, Associate Professor of Bioengineering and the McKay Orthopaedic Research Laboratory of Robert Mauck, Mary Black Ralston Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery and Professor of Bioengineering.

We would like to send congratulations once again to all our current and future graduate students on another year of outstanding research!

Bomyi Lim Receives KIChE President Young Investigator

Bomyi Lim, Ph.D.

Bomyi Lim, Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Biomolecular Engineering, has been selected by the U.S. Chapter of the Korean Institute of Chemical Engineers (KIChE) as the recipient of the KIChE President Young Investigator Award. As a recipient of this Award, Lim will be invited to present a research talk at the KIChE Open Forum during the AIChE Conference.

KIChE is an organization that aims “to promote constructive and mutually beneficial interactions among Korean Chemical Engineers in the U.S. and facilitate international collaboration between engineers in the U.S. and Korea.”

Read more on the Penn Engineering blog. Dr. Lim is a member of the Department of Bioengineering Graduate Group.

The Optimal Immune Repertoire for Bacteria

by Erica K. Brockmeier

Transmission electron micrograph of multiple bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, attached to a cell wall. New research describes how bacteria can optimize their “memory” of past viral infections in order to launch an effective immune response against a new invader. (Image: Graham Beards)

Before CRISPR became a household name as a tool for gene editing, researchers had been studying this unique family of DNA sequences and its role in the bacterial immune response to viruses. The region of the bacterial genome known as the CRISPR cassette contains pieces of viral genomes, a genomic “memory” of previous infections. But what was surprising to researchers is that rather than storing remnants of every single virus encountered, bacteria only keep a small portion of what they could hold within their relatively large genomes.

Work published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides a new physical model that explains this phenomenon as a tradeoff between how much memory bacteria can keep versus how efficiently they can respond to new viral infections. Conducted by researchers at the American Physical Society, Max Planck Institute, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Toronto, the model found an optimal size for a bacteria’s immune repertoire and provides fundamental theoretical insights into how CRISPR works.

In recent years, CRISPR has become the go-to biotechnology platform, with the potential to transform medicine and bioengineering. In bacteria, CRISPR is a heritable and adaptive immune system that allows cells to fight viral infections: As bacteria come into contact with viruses, they acquire chunks of viral DNA called spacers that are incorporated into the bacteria’s genome. When the bacteria are attacked by a new virus, spacers are copied from the genome and linked onto molecular machines known as Cas proteins. If the attached sequence matches that of the viral invader, the Cas proteins will destroy the virus.

Bacteria have a different type of immune system than vertebrates, explains senior author Vijay Balasubramanian, but studying bacteria is an opportunity for researchers to learn more about the fundamentals of adaptive immunity. “Bacteria are simpler, so if you want to understand the logic of immune systems, the way to do that would be in bacteria,” he says. “We may be able to understand the statistical principles of effective immunity within the broader question of how to organize an immune system.”

Read more on Penn Today.

Vijay Balasubramanian is the Cathy and Marc Lasry Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the Department of Bioengineering Graduate Group

This research was supported by the Simons Foundation (Grant 400425) and National Science Foundation Center for the Physics of Biological Function (Grant PHY-1734030). 

Daniel A. Hammer and Miriam Wattenbarger to Offer Summer Course on COVID-19

Daniel A. Hammer and Miriam Wattenbarger

As researchers hunt for a solution to the coronavirus outbreak, Daniel A. Hammer, Alfred G. and Meta A. Ennis Professor in Bioengineering and in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (CBE), is bringing lessons from the fight for a vaccine to the classroom.

Hammer will offer a course on COVID-19 and the coronavirus pandemic during Penn’s Summer II session, which will be held online this year. The course will be co-taught with Miriam Wattenbarger, senior lecturer in CBE.

The course, “Biotechnology, Immunology, and COVID-19,” will culminate with a case study of the coronavirus pandemic including the types of drugs proposed and their mechanism of action, as well as the process of vaccine development.

“Obviously, the pandemic has been a life-altering event, causing an immense dislocation for everyone in our community, especially the students. Between me and Miriam, who has been trumpeting the importance of vaccines for some time in her graduate-level CBE courses, we have the expertise to inform students about this disease and how we might combat it,” says Hammer.

For more than ten years, Wattenbarger has run courses and labs focused on drug delivery and biotechnology, key elements of the vaccine development process.

“I invite both researchers and industry speakers to meet with my students,” Wattenbarger says, “so that they learn the crucial role engineers play in both vaccine development and manufacturing.”

Beyond studying the interactions between the immune system and viruses — including HIV, influenza, adenovirus and coronavirus — students will cover a variety of biotechnological techniques relevant to tracking and defending against them, including recombinant DNA technology, polymerase chain reaction, DNA sequencing, gene therapy, CRISPR-Cas9 editing, drug discovery, small molecule inhibitors, vaccines and the clinical trial process.

Students will also learn the mathematical principles used to quantify biomolecular interactions, as well as those found behind simple epidemiological models and methods for making and purifying drugs and vaccines.

“We all have to contribute in the ways that we can. Having taught biotechnology to freshmen for the past decade, this is something that I can do that can both inform and build community,” says Hammer. “Never has it been more important to have an informed and scientifically literate community that can fight this or any future pandemic.”

Originally posted on the Penn Engineering blog. Media contact Evan Lerner. For more on BE’s COVID-19 projects, read our recent blog post.

Bioengineering News Round-Up (April 2020)

by Sophie Burkholder

How to Heal Chronic Wounds with “Smart” Bandages

Some medical conditions, like diabetes or limb amputation, have the potential to result in wounds that never heal, affecting patients for the rest of their lives. Though normal wound-healing processes are relatively understood by medical professionals, the complications that can lead to chronic non-healing wounds are often varied and complex, creating a gap in successful treatments. But biomedical engineering faculty from the University of Connecticut want to change that.

Ali Tamayol, Ph.D., an Associate Professor in UConn’s Biomedical Engineering Department, developed what he’s calling a “smart” bandage in collaboration with researchers from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Harvard Medical School. The bandage, paired with a smartphone platform, has the ability to deliver medications to the wound via wirelessly controlled mini needles. The minimally invasive device thus allows doctors to control medication dosages for wounds without the patient even having to come in for an appointment. Early tests of the device on mice showed success in wound-healing processes, and Tamayol hopes that soon, the technology will be able to do the same for humans.

A New Patch Could Fix Broken Hearts

Heart disease is by far one of the most common medical conditions in the world, and has a high risk of morbidity. While some efforts in tissue engineering have sought to resolve cardiac tissue damage, they often require the use of existing heart cells, which can introduce a variety of complications to its integration into the human body. So, a group of bioengineers at Trinity College in Dublin sought to eliminate the need for cells by creating a patch that mimics both the mechanical and electrical properties of cardiac tissue.

Using thermoelastic polymers, the engineers, led by Ussher Assistant Professor in Biomedical Engineering Michael Monaghan, Ph.D., created a patch that could withstand multiple rounds of stretching and exhibited elasticity: two of the biggest challenges in designing synthetic cardiac tissues. With the desired mechanical properties working, the team then coated the patches with an electroconductive polymer that would allow for the necessary electrical signaling of cardiac tissue without decreasing cell compatibility in the patch. So far, the patch has demonstrated success in both mechanical and electrical behaviors in ex vivo models, suggesting promise that it might be able to work in the human body, too.

3-D Printing a New Tissue Engineering Scaffold

While successful tissue engineering innovations often hold tremendous promise for advances in personalized medicine and regeneration, creating the right scaffold for cells to grow on either before or after implantation into the body can be tricky. One common approach is to use 3-D printers to extrude scaffolds into customizable shapes. But the problem is that not all scaffold materials that are best for the body will hold up their structure in the 3-D printing process.

A team of biomedical engineers at Rutgers University led by Chair of Biomedical Engineering David I. Schreiber, Ph.D., hopes to apply the use of hyaluronic acid — a common natural molecule throughout the human body — in conjunction with polyethylene glycol to create a gel-like scaffold. The hope is that the polyethylene glycol will improve the scaffold’s durability, as using hyaluronic acid alone creates a substance that is often too weak for tissue engineering use. Envisioning this gel-like scaffold as a sort of ink cartridge, the engineers hope that they can create a platform that’s customizable for a variety of different cells that require different mechanical properties to survive. Notably, this new approach can specifically control both the stiffness and the ligands of the scaffold, tailoring it to a number of tissue engineering applications.

A New Portable Chip Can Track Wide Ranges of Brain Activity

Understanding the workings of the human brain is no small feat, and neuroscience still has a long way to go. While recent technology in brain probes and imaging allows for better understanding of the organ than ever before, that technology often requires immense amounts of wires and stationary attachments, limiting the scope of brain activity that can be studied. The answer to this problem? Figure out a way to implant a portable probe into the brain to monitor its everyday signaling pathways.

That’s exactly what researchers from the University of Arizona, George Washington University, and Northwestern University set out to do. Together, they created a small, wireless, and battery-free device that can monitor brain activity by using light. The light-sensing works by first tinting some neurons with a dye that can change its brightness according to neuronal activity levels. Instead of using a battery, the device relies on energy from oscillating magnetic fields that it can pick up with a miniature antenna. Led in part by the University of Arizona’s Gutruf Lab, the new device holds promise for better understanding how complex brain conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s might work, as well as what the mechanisms of some mental health conditions look like, too.

People & Places

Each year, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) elects new members in what is considered one of the highest professional honors in engineering. This year, NAE elected 87 new members and 18 international members, including a former Penn faculty member and alumna Susan S. Margulies, Ph.D. Now a professor of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, Margulies was recognized by the NAE for her contributions to “elaborating the traumatic injury thresholds of brain and lung in terms of structure-function mechanisms.” Congratulations, Dr. Margulies!

Nimmi Ramanujam, Ph.D., a Distinguished Professor of Bioengineering at Duke University, was recently announced as having one of the highest-scoring proposals for the MacArthur Foundation’s 100&Change competition for her proposal “Women-Inspired Strategies for Health (WISH): A Revolution Against Cervical Cancer.” Dr. Ramanujam’s proposal, which will enter the next round of competition for the grant, focuses on closing the cervical cancer inequity gap by creating a new model of women-centered healthcare.

Blood Test May Help Doctors Catch Pancreatic Cancer Early

A blood test may be able to detect the most common form of pancreatic cancer while it is still in its early stages while also helping doctors accurately stage a patient’s disease and guide them to the appropriate treatment. A multidisciplinary study found the test—known as a liquid biopsy—was more accurate at detecting disease in a blinded study than any other known biomarker alone, and was also more accurate at staging disease than imaging is capable of alone. The team, which includes researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine, the Abramson Cancer Center, and the School of Engineering and Applied Science, published their findings in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), the most common form of pancreatic cancer, is the third leading cause of cancer deaths. The overall five-year survival rate is just 9%, and most patients live less than one year following their diagnosis. One of the biggest challenges is catching the disease before it has progressed or spread. If the disease is caught early, patients may be candidates for surgery to remove the cancer, which can be curative. For locally advanced patients—meaning patients whose cancer has not spread beyond the pancreas but who are not candidates for surgery based on the size or location of the tumor—treatment involves three months of systemic therapy like chemo or radiation, then reassessing to see if surgery is an option. For patients whose disease has spread, there are currently no curative treatment options.

“Right now, the majority of patients who are diagnosed already have metastatic disease, so there is a critical need for a test that can not only detect the disease earlier but also accurately tell us who might be at a point where we can direct them to a potentially curative treatment,” says the study’s co-senior author Erica L. Carpenter, director of the Liquid Biopsy Laboratory and a research assistant professor of medicine. The study’s other co-senior author is David Issadore, an associate professor of bioengineering and electrical and systems engineering.

Read more at Penn Medicine News.

Read more about Penn’s pancreatic cancer research here.