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Celebrating Innovation and Community at the 2025 Bioengineering Graduate Research Symposium

The 2025 Bioengineering Graduate Research Symposium, held on May 9 at the Singh Center for Nanotechnology, was a dynamic showcase of cutting-edge student research and a powerful example of scientific community in action. Organized by the Penn Bioengineering Graduate Group, the event featured a full afternoon of oral and poster presentations highlighting advances in immunotherapy, neuroengineering, regenerative medicine, and more. From engineering CAR-T therapies to decoding brain circuitry in depression and obesity, the symposium demonstrated the ingenuity and collaborative spirit of Penn’s graduate students.

A standout moment of the day was the keynote address by Drew Weissman, MD, PhD, a 2023 Nobel Laureate in Medicine and Director of the Penn Institute for RNA Innovation. Dr. Weissman traced the trajectory of mRNA science, from its early hurdles to its pivotal role in developing life-saving COVID-19 vaccines. He also shared where the field is headed—toward applications in cancer, autoimmune diseases, and beyond. His talk connected fundamental research with global impact, echoing the values at the heart of Penn Bioengineering.

Beyond the research, the symposium fostered a sense of community—welcoming faculty, students, and staff to connect over science and shared curiosity. With two lively poster sessions accompanied by refreshments, attendees had ample opportunity to exchange ideas and forge new collaborations. The event culminated in a reception that reflected the collegial, interdisciplinary ethos that defines Penn Bioengineering.

Whether through high-throughput diagnostic platforms, innovative biomaterials, or neuroimaging technologies, the work presented at the symposium exemplified how research at Penn is not only advancing science but also addressing critical challenges in health and society. The 2025 Symposium was not just a showcase, it was a celebration of a thriving research community, united in its pursuit of innovation and impact.

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2025 Undergraduate Awards for Bioengineering Students

Each spring, awards are given to undergraduate students in the School of Engineering and Applied Science in recognition of outstanding scholarly achievements and service to the School and University community.

Read the full list of Bioengineering undergraduate award winners below.

The Hugo Otto Wolf Memorial Prize

Joey Wu
Christopher Wun

Christopher Wun

This prize is awarded to one or more members of each department’s senior class, distinguishing students who meet with great approval of the professors at large through “thoroughness and originality” in their work.

“Thanks to my BE professors (and lab instructors especially) that made it possible for me to explore just about every facet of engineering!”
-Christopher Wun

“I’d like to express my gratitude to the bioengineering professor that supported my work and always believed in me: Dr. LeAnn Dourte. Dr. Dourte has been a personal mentor, academic influence, and professional advisor that has shaped the way I approach the world. She is an incredible teacher, patient mentor, and wonderful friend. Thank you for all that she does!”
-Joey Wu

Joey Wu

The Herman P. Schwan Award

Hana Bader

This department award honors a graduating senior who demonstrates the “highest standards of scholarship and academic achievement.”

Hana Bader

The Bioengineering Student Leadership Award

Gregory Datto

This award is given annually to a student in Bioengineering who has demonstrated, through a combination of academic performance, service, leadership, and personal qualities, that they will be a credit to the Department, the School, and the University.

Albert Giandomenico Award

Taken at the Penn Engineering Award Ceremony. From left to right: Gregory Datto (The Bioengineering Student Leadership Award), Jacqueline Li, Hana Bader, Hana Matsuda, and Rudy Whitney—all recipients of the Albert Giandomenico Award.

Hana Bader
Jacqueline Li
Hana Matsuda
Rudy Whitney

The Bioengineering Department also presents a single lab group with the Albert Giandomenico Award which reflects their “teamwork, leadership, creativity, and knowledge applied to discovery-based learning in the laboratory.”

“I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to my incredible teammates—Hana Bader, Hana Matsuda, and Rudy Whitney—whose collaboration, dedication, and clear communication made this award possible. I am equally grateful to our instructors, Professors David Meaney, David Issadore, and Michael Patterson, for their unwavering support throughout the Bioengineering MADLAB courses. Their technical guidance and encouragement were instrumental to our success and growth as a team.”
-Jacqueline Li

Rose Undergraduate Research Award

Ryann Joseph

Awarded by the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships (CURF). Ryann’s project was titled, “Cas9 protein outperforms Cas9 mRNA in CRISPR/Cas9 editing for lipid nanoparticle mediated recovery of CFTR functionality,” and was completed with the assistance of Professor Michael J. Mitchell.

Penn Engineering Exceptional Service Award

Ethan Eisenberg
Ryann Joseph
Sophie Klessel
Brianna Leung

This award recognize students for their outstanding service to the University and their larger communities.

“I have loved working to serve my engineering community as a TA and mentor!”
-Ryann Joseph

Ryann Joseph
Ethan Eisenberg

“Thank you very much to my professors and the faculty of the School of Engineering and Applied Science. I am very thankful and appreciative for this recognition.”
-Ethan Eisenberg

Ben and Bertha Gomberg Kirsch Award

Victor Maia Portella Dubeux

This competitive award is decided by the SEAS faculty from among the Engineering undergraduate body and distinguishes a member of the B.A.S. senior class who “in applying the flexibility of the program, has created a personal academic experience involving the most creative use of the resources of the University.”

The Wolf-Hallac Award

Kaitlin Mrksich

Kaitlin Mrksich

This award was established in October 2000 to recognize the graduating female senior from across Penn Engineering’s departments who is seen as a role model, has achieved a high GPA (in the top 10% of their class), and who has demonstrated a commitment to school and/or community.

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Optogenetic Functional Profiling Indicates New Mechanisms of Drug Tolerance in Cancer Cells

While modern cancer treatments can have tremendous therapeutic impact, formidable obstacles remain. Foremost among these is drug resistance, the ability of cancers to withstand and ultimately progress despite the presence of an anti-cancer drug. However, ongoing research provides hope that these challenges can be overcome, including recent work performed by Penn Engineers.

The lab of Lukasz J. Bugaj, Assistant Professor in the Department of Bioengineering, recently published an article that uncovers new mechanisms of how oncogenes interact  with important pathways of cellular signaling that are associated with resistance. This work, titled “Oncogenic EML4-ALK Assemblies Suppress Growth Factor Perception and Modulate Drug Tolerance,” applied a new technique called ‘optogenetic functional profiling’ that allowed measurement of how important molecular signaling pathways respond to precise perturbations applied by the researchers.  By applying this technique to many different cell types, the group found important differences in resistance-associated signaling between cancer cells and healthy cells 

Specifically, the research showed that an oncogene called EML4-ALK, which activates oncogenic signaling, simultaneously inactivates adjacent pathways that can cause resistance.  As a consequence, once an oncogene-blocking drug is applied, the inactivation is relieved, thus boosting activity through these adjacent, resistance-associated pathways.  The study also showed that these pathways were not only de-repressed, but were actively stimulated by neighboring cancer cells, further enhancing cell survival in the presence of the drug. 

“Our work shows that oncogenes, while driving cell division in cancer cells, simultaneously suppress the cells’ regulation by their environment,” said Dr. Bugaj. “While the work reveals mechanisms of paradoxical responses to drug treatment related to resistance, they may also inspire new ideas for therapies that can more efficiently kill cancer cells while maintaining suppression of resistance signaling. This work was co-led by PhD student David Gonzalez-Martinez and by Lee Roth, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow, and was supported by a grant from the American Cancer Society. 

Dr. Bugaj’s article can be read here.

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Loebel Lab Arrives in 2025

Reliance Industries Term Assistant Professor Claudia Loebel will establish her lab at The University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Bioengineering and the Center for Precision Engineering for Health in January 2025.

Dr. Loebel received her MD from Martin Luther University Halle Wittenberg, Germany and her Ph.D from ETH Zurich, Switzerland.

“My laboratory is developing testable models to investigate how extracellular signals regulate cellular function to direct the development and regeneration of organs, ultimately leading to more effective therapeutic treatments,” said Dr. Loebel in her research statement. “Building upon my K99/R00 and American Lung Association Innovation Awards, a major focus of my group has been on understanding the role of mechanical forces across various states of pulmonary development and regeneration.”

Dr. Loebel’s team is formed with an exciting combination of interdisciplinary scholars including postdoctoral associates, graduate and undergraduate students whose philosophy encourages respect for people’s differences, acknowledging and honoring religious and cultural practices, and foster diverse thinking. Dr. Loebel is also a recent recipient of the 2025 Rising Star Award from BMES CMBE, and also won the CMBE Young Innovators award for her published article, “Magnetoactive, Kirigami- Inspired Hammoks to Probe Lung Epithelial Cell Function.”

The Loebel Lab is funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship, whose mission is dedicated to further the advancement of people and communities with their three overreaching and interdependent goals: building societies, protecting and restoring the natural world, and investing in families.

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Boning Tong Wins Distinguished Paper Award

Boning Tong, a student in the Department of Bioengineering, has been awarded the Distinguished Paper Award from the AMIA 2024 Annual Symposium. The Awards Committee recognizes five notable papers that best encapsulate the potential of tremendous breakthroughs in the medical community. Ms. Tong works in the laboratory of Dr. Li Shen, who acts as her doctoral advisor and is a professor of Informatics in Biostatistics and Epidemiology.

“Our research tackles challenges in early Alzheimer’s Disease detection by addressing diagnosis label imbalances and fairness issues simultaneously in machine learning models,” said Ms. Tong. “Unlike traditional models, our approach achieves better prediction performance while minimizing bias related to sensitive factors like race, sex, and age. This advancement holds promise for improving the reliability and fairness of early AD detection, ultimately aiding better patient outcomes and equitable care.”

In the future, Ms. Tong plans to take the research they have gained and use them to obtain greater amounts of data. “Our plan is to apply our proposed model to other datasets with larger sample size and more detailed attribute subgroup information to explore the bias issue in AD further,” said Ms. Tong.

Ms. Tong’s work was supported by NIH grants and the ADNI data sets were obtained from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative Database.

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New Class of Encrypted Peptides Offer Hope in Fight Against Antibiotic Resistance

by Eric Horvath

Cesar de la Fuente, Presidential Assistant Professor with appointments in the Perelman School of Medicine, School of Engineering and School of Arts & Sciences (Image: Eric Sucar)

In a significant advance against the growing threat of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, researchers have identified a novel class of antimicrobial agents known as encrypted peptides, which may expand the immune system’s arsenal of tools to fight infection. The findings, published in Trends in Biotechnology by Cell Press, reveal that many antimicrobial molecules originate from proteins not traditionally associated with immune responses.

Unlike conventional antibiotics that target specific bacterial processes, these newly discovered peptides disrupt the protective membranes surrounding bacterial cells. By inserting themselves into these membranes—much like breaching a fortress wall—the peptides destabilize and ultimately destroy the bacteria.

“Our findings suggest that these previously overlooked molecules could be key players in the immune system’s response to infection,” says César de la Fuente, presidential assistant professor in bioengineering and in chemical and biomolecular engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, in psychiatry and microbiology in the Perelman School of Medicine, and in chemistry in the School of Arts & Sciences, who led the research team. “This may not only redefine how we understand immunity but also opens up new possibilities for treating drug-resistant infections.”

Read the full story in Penn Medicine News.

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Developing Kidneys from Scratch: Alex Hughes Tackles the Tremendous Burden of Kidney Disease

by Ian Scheffler

Alex Hughes, Assistant Professor in Bioengineering, holds a model of a developing kidney. (Credit: Bella Ciervo)

To Alex Hughes, Assistant Professor in Bioengineering within Penn Engineering and in Cell and Developmental Biology within Penn Medicine, the kidney is a work of art. “I find the development of the kidney to be a really beautiful process,” says Hughes.

Most people only ever see the organ in cross-section, through textbooks or by dissecting animal kidneys in high school biology class: a bean-shaped slice with lots of tiny tubes. “I think that really undersells how amazing the structure is,” says Hughes, who points out that kidneys grow in utero like forests of pipes, branching exponentially.

Densely packed with tubules clustered in units known as nephrons, kidneys cleanse the blood, maintaining the body’s fluid and electrolyte balance, while also regulating blood pressure. The organ played a crucial role in vertebrates emerging from the ocean: as one paper puts it, kidneys preserve the primordial ocean in all of us.

Unfortunately, kidneys struggle in the modern world. Excessively salty food, being overweight, not exercising enough, drinking too much and smoking can all raise blood pressure, which damages the kidney’s tiny blood vessels, as does diabetes.

In some cases, damage to the kidney’s nephrons can be slowed with lifestyle changes, but, unlike the liver, bones and skin, which can regrow damaged tissue, kidneys have a limited capacity to regenerate. At present, without a transplant, the nephrons we have at birth must last a lifetime.

Read the full story in Penn Engineering Today.

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Studying Wikipedia Browsing Habits to Learn How People Learn

by Nathi Magubane

A hyperlink network from English Wikipedia, with only 0.1% of articles (nodes) and their connections (edges) visualized. Seven different reader journeys through this network are highlighted in various colors. The network is organized by topic and displayed using a layout that groups related articles together. (Image: Dale Zhou)

At one point or another, you may have gone online looking for a specific bit of information and found yourself  “going down the Wiki rabbit hole” as you discover wholly new, ever-more fascinating related topics — some trivial, some relevant — and you may have gone so far down the hole it’s difficult to piece together what brought you there to begin with.

According to the University of Pennsylvania’s Dani Bassett, who recently worked with a collaborative team of researcher to examine the browsing habits of 482,760 Wikipedia readers from 50 different countries, this style of information acquisition is called the “busybody.” This is someone who goes from one idea or piece of information to another, and the two pieces may not relate to each other much.

“The busybody loves any and all kinds of newness, they’re happy to jump from here to there, with seemingly no rhyme or reason, and this is contrasted by the ‘hunter,’ which is a more goal-oriented, focused person who seeks to solve a problem, find a missing factor, or fill out a model of the world,” says Bassett.

In the research, published in the journal Science Advances, Bassett and colleagues discovered stark differences in browsing habits between countries with more education and gender equality versus less equality, raising key questions about the impact of culture on curiosity and learning.

Read the full story in Penn Today.

Dani S. Bassett is the J. Peter Skirkanich Professor at the University of Pennsylvania with a primary appointment in the School of Engineering and Applied Science’s Department of Bioengineering and secondary appointments in the School of Arts & Sciences’ Department of Physics & Astronomy, Penn Engineering’s Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, and the Perelman School of Medicine’s Departments of Neurology and Psychiatry.

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Penn’s Siloxane-Enhanced Nanoparticles Chart a New Path in Precision mRNA MedicineBeyond Displays: Liquid Crystals in Motion Mimic Biological Systems

by Ian Scheffler

By adjusting the chemical structure of lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), Penn Engineers have discovered how to target specific organs, a major breakthrough in precision medicine. (Love Employee via Getty Images)

Penn Engineers have discovered a novel means of directing lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), the revolutionary molecules that delivered the COVID-19 vaccines, to target specific tissues, presaging a new era in personalized medicine and gene therapy.

While past research — including at Penn Engineering — has screened “libraries” of LNPs to find specific variants that target organs like the lungs, this approach is akin to trial and error. “We’ve never understood how the structure of one key component of the LNP, the ionizable lipid, determines the ultimate destination of LNPs to organs beyond the liver,” says Michael J. Mitchell, Associate Professor in Bioengineering.

In a new paper published in Nature Nanotechnology, Mitchell’s group describes how subtle adjustments to the chemical structure of the ionizable lipid, a key component of the LNP, allows for tissue-specific delivery, in particular to the liver, lungs and spleen.

Read the full story in Penn Engineering Today.

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Penn Bioengineering Student Wins Gilliam Fellowship

Sam Preza (Image: Courtesy of Penn Medicine News)

Sam Preza, a doctoral student in Bioengineering, was named one of two Penn graduate students and one of 50 graduate students nationwide to receive a 2024 Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Gilliam Fellowship.  The HHMI Gilliam Fellowship cohort is awarded annually to graduate students and their advisors for outstanding research and commitment to advancing equity and inclusion in science. The fellowship includes a one-year mentorship skills development course and support to promote healthy and inclusive graduate training environments at their home institution.

Preza is a member of lab of Juan Rene Alvarez Dominguez, Assistant Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology in the Perelman School of Medicine and member of the Bioengineering Graduate Group. He graduated from University of Maryland in 2019 with a degree in Chemical Engineering. After working for t three years at AstraZeneca in Bioprocess Development, he joined the J-RAD Lab where he researches technologies for unmet medical needs:

“[Preza’s] PhD program harnesses the power of stem cells and circadian rhythms to ultimately develop a cure for Type I diabetes, which he researches alongside his advisor, Juan Alvarez, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology. Their studies focus on beta cells, the type of cell found in the pancreas that helps regulate glucose. In the lab, they study how exposing cells to circadian rhythms could lead to functional beta cells that can be transplanted into diabetic patients to restore function. This work will be supported by their HHMI Fellowship grant.  

The fellowship not only supports their scientific research but also helps foster an inclusive research environment, ensuring various backgrounds and ideologies contribute to their research. Preza is starting a DEI ‘potluck’, where bioengineering students can gather to discuss new research or career ideas. The meetups are catered by whichever student is hosting the meeting and can either showcase their nationality’s food or a cuisine they are passionate about, highlighting the celebration of diversity of ideas through food.

‘I believe STEM fields should look more like a mosaic of all our backgrounds rather than a melting pot, to add to the richness that is the art of science,’ Preza said.”

Read “Inclusion meets innovation: Meet Penn’s new Gilliam Fellows” in Penn Medicine News.