Electromagnetic fields are everywhere, and especially so in recent years. To most of us, those fields are undetectable. But a small number of people believe they have an actual allergy to electromagnetic fields. Ken Foster, a Professor Emeritus of Bioengineering, has heard these arguments before. “Activists would point to all these biological effects studies and say, ‘There must be some hazard’; health agencies would have meticulous reviews of literature and not see much of a problem.”
The junior year BE-MAD lab series includes modules on dialysis, drug delivery, insect limb control, microfluidics, cell-cell communication, ECG analysis (pictured here), and spectroscopy. (Image: Bioengineering Educational Lab)
While the majority of courses remained online this spring, a small number of lab-based undergraduate courses were able to resume limited in-person instruction. One course was BE 310, the second semester of the Bioengineering Modeling, Analysis, and Design lab sequence. Better known as BE-MAD, this junior-year bioengineering course was able to bring students back to the teaching lab safely this spring while adapting its curriculum to keep remote learners engaged with hands-on lab modules at home.
An Essential Step Towards Becoming a Bioengineer
After learning the basics of chemistry, physics, biology, and math during freshman year and studying bioengineering fundamentals throughout sophomore year, BE-MAD is designed to provide essential hands-on experience to bioengineering majors during their junior years. In BE-MAD, students integrate what they’ve learned so far in the classroom to addressing complex, real-world problems by breaking down the silos that exist across different STEM fields.
“Usually what we hear from students is that this BE 309/310 sequence is when they really feel like they are engineers,” says Brian Chow, one of the BE 310 instructors. “They can put what they learn in classes to work in some practical setting and applied context.”
BE-MAD is also an important course to prepare students for senior design and is designed to be a “safe space to fail,” allowing students to build confidence through trial and error within a supportive environment, explains Sevile G. Mannickarottu, director of the educational laboratories. “We’re trying to build skills needed for senior year as well as teaching students how to think critically about problems by pulling together the materials they’ve learned all in one place,” he says. “By senior year, we want them to, when presented with a problem, not be afraid.”
Adapting BE-MAD for Both Remote and Hybrid Instruction
Traditionally, the BE-MAD lab is taught in the George H. Stephenson Foundation Educational Laboratory & Bio-MakerSpace, the primary bioengineering teaching lab, and includes modules on dialysis, drug delivery, insect limb control, microfluidics, cell-cell communication, ECG analysis, and spectroscopy. In the fall, the first lab in the series (BE-309) pivoted to remote learning using video tutorials of lab experiments and providing real data to students for analysis.
This spring, with more aspects of on-campus life able to reopen, the Educational Laboratory staff and BE-MAD instructors developed protocols in collaboration with David Meaney, Penn Engineering senior associate dean and an instructor for BE 309, and Penn’s Environmental Health and Radiation Safety office to safely reopen the teaching lab and Bio-MakerSpace for both BE-310 and for bioengineering senior design students.
The BE-MAD lab was also recreated on Gather.Town, an online video chat platform where students can speak with group members or instructors. Student groups also had their own tables where they could meet virtually to work on data analysis and lab report writing.
To continue to meet the needs of remote students, BE 310 instructor Lukasz Bugaj says that the curriculum was adapted to be two parallel courses—one that could be done entirely at home and the other in-person. The challenge was to adjust the content so that it could be completed either in-person or virtually, and could be switched from in-person to virtual at a moment’s notice because of COVID precautions, all while maximizing the hands-on experience, says Bugaj. “That’s a real credit to the lab staff of Sevile and Michael Patterson, who put a lot of work into revamping this entire class.”
Andrei Georgescu (left) and Dan Huh are the co-founders of Vivodyne, a spin-off of Huh’s BIOLines lab.
Dan Huh, Associate Professor in the Department of Bioengineering, has been steadily growing a collection of organs-on-chips. These devices incorporate human cells into precisely engineered microfluidic channels that mimic an organ’s natural environment, providing a way to conduct experiments that would not otherwise be feasible.
Huh’s previous research has involved using a placenta-on-a-chip to study which drugs are able to reach a developing fetus; investigating microgravity’s effect on the immune system by sending one of his chips to the International Space Station; and testing treatments for dry eye disease using an eye-on-a-chip, complete with a mechanical blinking eyelid.
Now, he and his colleagues are taking this technology out of their lab and into industry with their company, Vivodyne.
Andrei Georgescu, Huh’s lab-member and co-founder of Vivodyne, recently spoke with Technical.ly Philly’s Paige Gross about the growth of their company.
Research into potential drugs is usually performed first on mice, and success is only found in a fraction of humans once implemented in clinical trials, Andrei Georgescu, cofounder and CEO of Vivodyne, told Technical.ly. The genetic makeup just isn’t similar enough. But technology that allows scientists to test therapies on lab-grown human organs called “organs on chip” is allowing for testing without human subjects.
The organs on chip allow for a drug to react to tissue in a more similar way to the body than it would in a petri dish, Georgescu said. Cells sense their environment very well, he added.
“We’re making the environment more complicated, making its spacial features complicated enough to match the native complexity of the organs,” he said. “When [cells] sense a softer environment, they start to behave more realistically. Their response to the drug is more realistic.”
Carl June, MD, the Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy in the department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, director of the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies at Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center, and member of the Penn Bioengineering Graduate Group, received the $1 million Sanford Lorraine Cross Award for his groundbreaking work in developing chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy. June is a world renowned cancer cell therapy pioneer.
“Sanford Health, the only health system in the country to award a $1 million prize for achievements in the medical sciences, announced the award on April 13 at a special ceremony in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The biennial award recognizes life-changing breakthroughs and bringing emerging transformative medical innovations to patients.
‘This is a well-deserved and exciting award for one of Penn’s most distinguished faculty members, whose pioneering research has reshaped the fight against cancer and brought fresh hope for both adults and children with the disease,’ said J. Larry Jameson, MD, PhD, Executive Vice President of the University of Pennsylvania for the Health System and Dean of the Perelman School of Medicine. ‘His contributions truly have been transformative for patients across the globe and taken the field of oncology in new and powerful directions.'”
Christopher B. Rodell completed his Ph.D. in Penn Bioengineering in 2016 and has since gone on to complete a postdoc at the Center for Systems Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He is now an Assistant Professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems at Drexel University. Chris caught up with the BE Blog to talk about his love of Philly and the Penn Bioengineering community:
Chris Rodell, Ph.D.
“Yes, Penn is a great place to study – it’s full of brilliant instructors and classmates. No big surprises there. But Penn Bioengineering is so much more than that! It’s a community with passion, grit, and great times that reflect the city as a whole.
I grew up in the South, so I didn’t really know much about the school or Philly in general when I first visited. But what stood out to me was the people. From the professors to the grad students and even the other visiting students, nearly everyone I met was genuinely excited to talk about their work and just wanted to have a good time doing it. Looking back, I realize that’s exactly what I needed to thrive in a research-based education. Whether studying for a class or pulling long hours at lab, it takes some grit to make it through an engineering degree. But being passionate and having others to share your excitement with make it fun. Penn Bioengineering is a really unique place where I always felt welcome to talk with anyone – the sense of community and openness is probably one of the biggest reasons for their great success in education, research, and productive collaboration.
Through my time at Penn, I was fortunate enough to work with Jason Burdick who is, as everyone told me, ‘one of smartest and nicest people you’ll ever meet.’ I also had the opportunity to build a network of lifelong friends and mentors that span the school of engineering, the medical school, and the broader academic community of Philadelphia. These connections have continued to provide me a sense of community as I embark on an independent research career at Drexel, and I’m excited to be back in Philly!”
This post is part of BE’s Alumni Spotlight series. Read more testimonies from BE Alumni on the BE website.
As we age, the cushioning cartilage between our joints begins to wear down, making it harder and more painful to move. Known as osteoathritis, this extremely common condition has no known cure; if the symptoms can’t be managed, the affected joints must be surgically replaced.
Now, researchers are exploring whether their specially designed nanoparticles can deliver a new inflammation inhibitor to joints, targeting a previously overlooked enzyme called sPLA2.
The normal function of sPLA2 is to provide lipids (fats) that promote a variety of inflammation processes. The enzyme is always present in cartilage tissue, but typically in low levels. However, when the researchers examined mouse and human cartilage taken from those with osteoarthritis, disproportionately high levels of the enzyme were discovered within the tissue’s structure and cells.
“This marked increase strongly suggests that sPLA2 plays a role in the development of osteoarthritis,” said the study’s corresponding author, Zhiliang Cheng, PhD, a research associate professor of Bioengineering. “Being able to demonstrate this showed that we were on the right track for what could be a potent target for the disease.”
The next step was for the study team – which included lead author Yulong Wei, MD, a researcher in Penn Medicine’s McKay Orthopaedic Research Laboratory – to put together a nanoparticle loaded with an sPLA2 inhibitor. This would block the activity of sPLA2 enzyme and, they believed, inflammation. These nanoparticles were mixed with animal knee cartilage in a lab, then observed as they diffused deeply into the dense cartilage tissue. As time progressed, the team saw that the nanoparticles stayed there and did not degrade significantly or disappear. This was important for the type of treatment the team envisioned.
We are thrilled to announce the appointment of Ning Jenny Jiang, Ph.D. as the tenured Peter & Geri Skirkanich Associate Professor of Innovation in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Jenny Jiang comes to Penn from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. She obtained her Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology and did her postdoctoral training at Stanford University.
Jiang’s research focuses on systems immunology by developing technologies that enable high-throughput, high-content, single cell profiling of T cells in health and disease and she is recognized as one of the leading authorities in systems immunology and immunoengineering. She is a pioneer in developing tools in biophysics, genomics, immunology, and informatics and applying them to study systems immunology in human diseases. Her early work on the development of the first high-throughput immune-repertoire sequencing technology opened up a brand new field of immune-repertoire profiling. Her laboratory developed the first high-throughput in situ T cell receptor affinity measurement technology and she pioneered the development of integrated single T cell profiling technologies. These technological innovations have changed the paradigm of T cell profiling in disease diagnosis and in immune engineering for therapeutics. Using these technologies, her laboratory has made many discoveries in immunology, from unexpected infants’ immunity in malaria infection to “holes” in T cell repertoire in aging immune systems in elderly, from dysregulated T cells in HIV infection to high-throughput identification of neoantigen-specific T cell receptor for cancer immunotherapy.
Dr. Jiang was also recently elected to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) College of Fellows for her outstanding contributions to the field of systems immunology and immunoengineering and devotion to the success of women in engineering. A virtual induction ceremony was held on March 26, 2021.
Additionally, Jiang is a recipient of numerous other awards, including the Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Award, an NSF CAREER award, and a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Neurodegeneration Challenge Network Ben Barres Early Career Acceleration Award. She was selected as one of National Academy of Medicine Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine Scholars in 2019.
Jiang’s appointment will begin June 1, 2021. Welcome to Penn Bioengineering, Dr. Jiang!
N.B.: Edited 7/2/21 with full endowed chair title.
A National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases lab freezer used for COVID-19 vaccine research. Both of the current mRNA-based COVID vaccines require ultra-cold freezers to prevent their mRNA from degrading, spurring research into other ways to stabilize the molecule.
As the technology behind two of the COVID-19 vaccines, Messenger RNA (mRNA) is having a moment. A single-stranded counterpart to DNA, mRNA translates its genetic code into proteins; by injecting mRNA engineered to produce proteins found on the exterior of the virus, the vaccine can train a person’s immune system to recognize the real thing without making them sick.
However, because mRNA is a relatively unstable molecule, distributing these vaccines involves extra logistical challenges. Doses must be transported and stored at ultra-cold temperatures to make sure the mRNA inside doesn’t degrade and lose the genetic information it carries.
Michael Mitchell
As mRNA vaccines and other therapies take off, researchers are looking for other ways to forestall this degradation. One of them is Michael J. Mitchell, Skirkanich Assistant Professor of Innovation in the Department of Bioengineering, who is studying the use of lipid nanoparticles to encapsulate and protect mRNA on its way into the cell. That sort of packaging would be particularly beneficial in proposed mRNA therapies for certain genetic disorders, which aim to deliver the correct protein-making instructions to specific organs, or even a fetus in utero.
But for stabilizing mRNA for vaccine distribution, many other strategies are being explored. In “Keeping covid vaccines cold isn’t easy. These ideas could help,” Wudan Yan of MIT Technology Review reached out to Mitchell for insight on LIONs, or lipid inorganic nanoparticles. These nanoparticles work the opposite way of Mitchell’s organic ones, with the mRNA stabilized by binding to their exteriors.
César de la Fuente, Ph.D., a Presidential Assistant Professor in Psychiatry, Microbiology, and Bioengineering, is leading a team to develop an electrode that can be easily printed at low cost to provide COVID-19 test results from your smart phone.
A recent Penn Medicine blog post surveys the efforts across Penn and the Perelman School of Medicine to develop novel says to detect SARS-CoV-2 and features several Department of Bioengineering faculty and Graduate Group members, including César de la Fuente, Presidential Assistant Professor in Psychiatry, Microbiology, and Bioengineering; Arupa Ganguly, Professor in Genetics; A.T. Charlie Johnson, Rebecca W. Bushnell Professor in Physics and Astronomy; Lyle Ungar, Professor in Computer and Information Science; and Ping Wang, Associate Professor in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.
Read “We’ll Need More than Vaccines to Vanquish the Virus: New COVID-19 Testing Technology at Penn” by Melissa Moodyin Penn Medicine News.
The Lindback Awards, announced annually, are the most prestigious teaching awards that full-time faculty members at the University can receive.
Meaney is the Solomon R. Pollack Professor in Bioengineering and Senior Associate Dean of Penn Engineering and his research areas span from traumatic brain injury to brain network theory. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Bioengineering and Biomedical Engineering from Penn Engineering.
