University of Pennsylvania Department of Bioengineering
Jason Burdick, Professor in Bioengineering, will give the annual Heilmeier lecture tomorrow — Tuesday, April 10, 2018 — after having been been named the recipient of the 2017–18 George H. Heilmeier Faculty Award for Excellence in Research for “pioneering contributions to designing and developing polymers for applications in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine.” The Heilmeier Award …
Online Tool for 3D Visualization of Gene Mutations Fifteen years ago marked a major milestone in the Human Genome Project: scientists successfully sequenced all of the base pairs in our 23 sets of chromosomes. Following this accomplishment, researchers assembled generations of mathematical models to understand how gene mutations result in disease. A key barrier in …
Modeling Hemostasis With Microfluidics Hemostasis is the process by which blood stops flowing from damaged blood vessels. It is a complex process involving multiple molecules and forces, and our current understanding is limited by our inability to test these factors simultaneously in the laboratory. Some tests, for instance, can tell us much about clotting — …
Fetal Repair Without Surgery? Spina bifida is a fairly common type of birth defect caused by incomplete closure of the backbone and tissue surrounding the spinal cord. Fetal surgery can repair the defect before delivery, but this invasive surgery can lead to high risk preterm delivery. A new material may dramatically reduce the invasiveness of …
SynBio News Synthetic biology (SynBio) is an important field within bioengineering. Now, SynBio and its relationships with nanotechnology and microbiology will get a big boost with a $6 million grant from the National Science Foundation awarded to the lab of Jason Gleghorn, Ph.D., assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Delaware. The grant, which …
The Brain in Focus At Caltech, scientists are exploiting the information generated by body movements, determining how the brain codes these movements in the anterior intraparietal cortex — a part of the brain beneath the top of the skull. In a paper published in Neuron, Richard A. Andersen, James G. Boswell Professor of Neuroscience at Caltech, and his …
We are thrilled to announce the successful recruitment of three (!) new faculty members to the department. We conducted a national faculty search and could not decide on one — we wanted all three of our finalists! We are very happy that they chose Penn and think we can provide an amazing environment for their education …
Bioengineering Organ Systems Two news stories this week detailed how bioengineering and biomedical engineering are transforming how human organ systems could be better manipulated for positive effects on health. One of the critical organ transplant shortages in medicine is the gap between patients needing a liver transplant (around 13,000 each year) and the those receiving …