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.
Senior Akshay Malhotra (center) pumps up Penn Fencing. He is one of several Engineering students on the team, including senior Alexandre Amice, sophomores Kristina Khaw and Jerry Wu, and freshman Enzo Bergamo. (Photos courtesy of Penn Athletics)
What were the chances? Captivated by a fencing demonstration at his elementary school in St. Louis, MO, an American-born son of French parentage went straight home and announced his desire to learn the sport. Meanwhile, an internationally recognized fencer, who had once coached the Egyptian National team, had settled in St. Louis and was busy making plans to establish a fencing club there. Two dreams collided: The Fencers Academy of St. Louis took shape and the boy learned to fence, and to fence well. Meet Alexandre Amice (BSE’20, MSE’20).
Amice’s passion for the sport remained strong throughout high school, and the year he walked on to the Penn Fencing Team as a freshman engineering student, he was voted by the captains and coaches as Most Dedicated Fencer.
Of the three types of fencing swords: the épée, the foil and the sabre, Amice’s weapon of choice is the light and flexible foil. In foil bouts, the target area for scoring touches is limited to the torso, requiring the fencers to remain closely engaged and in constant motion. Amice characterizes his fencing style as “athletic,” with his build and skillset well-matched with his weapon.
Amice cites his measured and deliberate competition strategy as useful in his intellectual life. As he concurrently works toward his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering and mathematics and a master’s in robotics, Amice clearly is not one to waste energy.
THE COOL ONE
The sabre is the weapon of choice for Penn World Scholar and freshman electrical engineering major, Enzo Bergamo. At an early age, he determined the discipline of sabre fencing to be “the cool one,” with its reputation for quickness, aggression, slashing touches and split-second decision making. Compared in speed and spirit to Formula 1 racing by Olympic sabre fencer Daryl Homer, the target area for the discipline is the entire torso, the head, and the arms up to the wrist.
Andy Ma, Penn’s head fencing coach, also serves as sabre coach, and Bergamo feels fortunate to be able to work with him one-on-one in lessons once or twice a week. After twelve years of high-level fencing in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Bergamo attributes his renewed love for the sport to Ma’s influence and attentive demeanor. For Bergamo, being able to face down frustration and maintain physical and emotional balance are valuable attributes, with or without a sword in his hand.
Bergamo notes that he and his teammates are known as “student athletes,” not “athlete students,” and, with an electrical engineering concentration in data science and a minor in computer and information science, he envisions a master’s degree in his future. Bergamo’s overarching goal, he states, is “making a positive impact in my home country.”
SMALL BUT MIGHTY
At 5’3,” Kristina Khaw, a sophomore bioengineering major, fences with the épée, the largest and heaviest of fencing swords. Bouts in épée have been described as “aggressive defensive,” and points can be scored with touches anywhere on the body. Fencers train especially hard to perfect their skills in counter moves.
Obeying her mother’s directive to put her books aside in favor of exercise now and again, Khaw followed her sister, Kathryn (ENG’19), onto the fencing strip. She admits that, as a seventh grader, her greatest incentive to take up the sport was watching Kathryn delightedly stab their cousin with impunity in club practice.
As Khaw describes it, the muscle memory to succeed in épée came easily to her. Her stats provide proof: From the USA Fencing Nationals in the summer of her high school sophomore year, Khaw brought back to her Plainsboro, NJ, home the title of Division ll Women’s Épée Champion. Other notable wins and honors followed.
Khaw is a problem solver by nature and believes that her strategizing as a fencer creates new brain connections, enhancing her ability to think about things in new ways. Accordingly, she finds myriad applications of her athletic training to her life as a Penn Engineer.
“One touch at a time” is Khaw’s fencing mantra and, as she continues her studies on the pre-med track, her calm and logic will undoubtedly inform her journey.
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:
Matthew Aronson will have rotations in the Gottardi and Mitchell labs
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!
A message from Penn Bioengineering Professor and Chair Ravi Radhakrishnan:
In response to the unprecedented challenges presented by the global outbreak of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, Penn Bioengineering’s faculty, students, and staff are finding innovative ways of pivoting their research and academic projects to contribute to the fight against COVID-19. Though these projects are all works in progress, I think it is vitally important to keep those in our broader communities informed of the critical contributions our people are making. Whether adapting current research to focus on COVID-19, investing time, technology, and equipment to help health care infrastructure, or creating new outreach and educational programs for students, I am incredibly proud of the way Penn Bioengineering is making a difference. I invite you to read more about our ongoing projects below.
RESEARCH
Novel Chest X-Ray Contrast
David Cormode, Associate Professor of Radiology and Bioengineering
The Cormode and Noel labs are working to develop dark-field X-ray imaging, which may prove very helpful for COVID patients. It involves fabricating diffusers that incorporate gold nanoparticles to modify the X-ray beam. This method gives excellent images of lung structure. Chest X-ray is being used on the front lines for COVID patients, and this could potentially be an easy to implement modification of existing X-ray systems. The additional data give insight into the health state of the microstructures (alveoli) in the lung. This new contrast mechanics could be an early insight into the disease status of COVID-19 patients. For more on this research, see Cormode and Noel’s chapter in the forthcoming volume Spectral, Photon Counting Computed Tomography: Technology and Applications, edited by Katsuyuki Taguchi, Ira Blevis, and Krzysztof Iniewski (Routledge 2020).
Immunotherapy
Michael J. Mitchell, Skirkanich Assistant Professor of Innovation in Bioengineering
Mike Mitchell is working with Saar Gill (Penn Medicine) on engineering drug delivery technologies for COVID-19 mRNA vaccination. He is also developing inhalable drug delivery technologies to block COVID-19 internalization into the lungs. These new technologies are adaptations of prior research published Volume 20 of Nano Letters (“Ionizable Lipid Nanoparticle-Mediated mRNA Delivery for Human CAR T Cell Engineering” January 2020) and discussed in Volume 18 of Nature Reviews Drug Discovery (“Delivery Technologies for Cancer Immunotherapy” January 2019).
Respiratory Distress Therapy Modeling
Ravi Radhakrishnan, Professor, and Chair of Bioengineering and Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Computational Models for Targeting Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). The severe forms of COVID-19 infections resulting in death proceeds by the propagation of the acute respiratory distress syndrome or ARDS. In ARDS, the lungs fill up with fluid preventing oxygenation and effective delivery of therapeutics through the inhalation route. To overcome this major limitation, delivery of antiinflammatory drugs through the vasculature (IV injection) is a better approach; however, the high injected dose required can lead to toxicity. A group of undergraduate and postdoctoral researchers in the Radhakrishnan Lab (Emma Glass, Christina Eng, Samaneh Farokhirad, and Sreeja Kandy) are developing a computational model that can design drug-filled nanoparticles and target them to the inflamed lung regions. The model combines different length-scales, (namely, pharmacodynamic factors at the organ scale, hydrodynamic and transport factors in the tissue scale, and nanoparticle-cell interaction at the subcellular scale), into one integrated framework. This targeted approach can significantly decrease the required dose for combating ARDS. This project is done in collaboration with Clinical Scientist Dr. Jacob Brenner, who is an attending ER Physician in Penn Medicine. This research is adapted from prior findings published in Volume 13, Issue 4 of Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology and Medicine: “Mechanisms that determine nanocarrier targeting to healthy versus inflamed lung regions” (May 2017).
Diagnostics
Sydney Shaffer, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering and Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Arjun Raj, David Issadore, and Sydney Shaffer are working on developing an integrated, rapid point-of-care diagnostic for SARS-CoV-2 using single molecule RNA FISH. The platform currently in development uses sequence specific fluorescent probes that bind to the viral RNA when it is present. The fluorescent probes are detected using a iPhone compatible point-of-care reader device that determines whether the specimen is infected or uninfected. As the entire assay takes less than 10 minutes and can be performed with minimal equipment, we envision that this platform could ultimately be used for screening for active COVID19 at doctors’ offices and testing sites. Support for this project will come from a recently-announced IRM Collaborative Research Grant from the Institute of Regenerative Medicine with matching funding provided by the Departments of Bioengineering and Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine (PSOM) (PI’s: Sydney Shaffer, Sara Cherry, Ophir Shalem, Arjun Raj). This research is adapted from findings published in the journal Lab on a Chip: “Multiplexed detection of viral infections using rapid in situ RNA analysis on a chip” (Issue 15, 2015). See also United States Provisional Patent Application Serial No. 14/900,494 (2014): “Methods for rapid ribonucleic acid fluorescence in situ hybridization” (Inventors: Raj A., Shaffer S.M., Issadore D.).
HEALTH CARE INFRASTRUCTURE
Penn Health-Tech Coronavirus COVID-19 Collaborations
Brian Litt, Professor of Bioengineering, Neurology, and Neurosurgery
In his role as one of the faculty directors for Penn Health-Tech, Professor Brian Litt is working closely with me to facilitate all the rapid response team initiatives, and in helping to garner support the center and remove obstacles. These projects include ramping up ventilator capacity and fabrication of ventilator parts, the creation of point-of-care ultrasounds and diagnostic testing, evaluating processes of PPE decontamination, and more. Visit the Penn Health-Tech coronavirus website to learn more, get involved with an existing team, or submit a new idea.
BE Educational Labs staff members Dana Abulez (BE ’19, Master’s BE ’20) and Matthew Zwimpfer (MSE ’18, Master’s MSE ’19) take shifts to laser-cut face shields.
The George H. Stephenson Foundation Educational Laboratory & Bio-MakerSpace staff have donated their PPE to Penn Medicine. Two staff members (Dana Abulez, BE ’19, Master’s BE ’20 and Matthew Zwimpfer, MSE ’18, Master’s MSE ’19) took shifts to laser-cut face shields in collaboration with Penn Health-Tech. Dana and Matthew are also working with Dr. Matthew Maltese on his low-cost ventilator project (details below).
Low-Cost Ventilator
Matthew Maltese, Adjunct Professor of Medical Devices and BE Graduate Group Member
Dr. Maltese is rapidly developing a low-cost ventilator that could be deployed in Penn Medicine for the expected surge, and any surge in subsequent waves. This design is currently under consideration by the FDA for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA). This example is one of several designs considered by Penn Medicine in dealing with the patient surge.
Face Shields
David F. Meaney, Solomon R. Pollack Professor of Bioengineering and Senior Associate Dean
Led by David Meaney, Kevin Turner, Peter Bruno and Mark Yim, the face shield team at Penn Health-Tech is working on developing thousands of rapidly producible shields to protect and prolong the usage of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). Learn more about Penn Health-Tech’s initiatives and apply to get involved here.
Update 4/29/20: The Penn Engineering community has sprung into action over the course of the past few weeks in response to COVID-19. Dr. Meaney shared his perspective on those efforts and the ones that will come online as the pandemic continues to unfold. Read the full post on the Penn Engineering blog.
OUTREACH & EDUCATION
Student Community Building
Yale Cohen, Professor of Otorhinolaryngology, Department of Psychology, BE Graduate Group Member, and BE Graduate Chair
Yale Cohen, and Penn Bioengineering’s Graduate Chair, is working with Penn faculty and peer institutions across the country to identify intellectually engaging and/or community-building activities for Bioengineering students. While those ideas are in progress, he has also worked with BE Department Chair Ravi Radhakrishnan and Undergraduate Chair Andrew Tsourkas to set up a dedicated Penn Bioengineering slack channel open to all Penn Bioengineering Undergrads, Master’s and Doctoral Students, and Postdocs as well as faculty and staff. It has already become an enjoyable place for the Penn BE community to connect and share ideas, articles, and funny memes.
Undergraduate Course: Biotechnology, Immunology, Vaccines and COVID-19 (ENGR 35)
Daniel A. Hammer, Alfred G. and Meta A. Ennis Professor of Bioengineering and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
This Summer Session II, Professor Dan Hammer and CBE Senior Lecturer Miriam R. Wattenbarger will teach a brand-new course introducing Penn undergraduates to a basic understanding of biological systems, immunology, viruses, and vaccines. This course will start with the fundamentals of biotechnology, and no prior knowledge of biotechnology is necessary. Some chemistry is needed to understand how biological systems work. The course will cover basic concepts in biotechnology, including DNA, RNA, the Central Dogma, proteins, recombinant DNA technology, polymerase chain reaction, DNA sequencing, the functioning of the immune system, acquired vs. innate immunity, viruses (including HIV, influenza, adenovirus, and coronavirus), gene therapy, CRISPR-Cas9 editing, drug discovery, types of pharmaceuticals (including small molecule inhibitors and monoclonal antibodies), vaccines, clinical trials. Some quantitative principles will be used to quantifying the strength of binding, calculate the dynamics of enzymes, writing and solving simple epidemiological models, methods for making and purifying drugs and vaccines. The course will end with specific case study of coronavirus pandemic, types of drugs proposed and their mechanism of action, and vaccine development.
Update 4/29/20: Read the Penn Engineering blog post on this course published April 27, 2020.
Neuromatch Conference
Konrad Kording, Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor of Bioengineering, Neuroscience, and Computer and Information Science
Dr. Kording facilitated Neuromatch 2020, a large virtual neurosciences conferences consisting of over 3,000 registrants. All of the conference talk videos are archived on the conference website and Dr. Kording has blogged about what he learned in the course of running a large conference entirely online. Based on the success of Neuromatch 1.0, the team are now working on planning Neuromatch 2.0, which will take place in May 2020. Dr. Kording is also working on facilitating the transition of neuroscience communication into the online space, including a weekly social (#neurodrinking) with both US and EU versions.
Neuromatch Academy
Konrad Kording, Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor of Bioengineering, Neuroscience, and Computer and Information Science
Dr. Kording is working to launch the Neuromatch Academy, an open, online, 3-week intensive tutorial-based computational neuroscience training event (July 13-31, 2020). Participants from undergraduate to professors as well as industry are welcome. The Neuromatch Academy will introduce traditional and emerging computational neuroscience tools, their complementarity, and what they can tell us about the brain. A main focus is not just on using the techniques, but on understanding how they relate to biological questions. The school will be Python-based making use of Google Colab. The Academy will also include professional development / meta-science, model interpretation, and networking sessions. The goal is to give participants the computational background needed to do research in neuroscience. Interested participants can learn more and apply here.
Journal of Biomedical Engineering Call for Review Articles
Beth Winkelstein, Vice Provost for Education and Eduardo D. Glandt President’s Distinguished Professor of Bioengineering
The American Society of Medical Engineers’ (ASME) Journal of Biomechanical Engineering (JBME), of which Dr. Winkelstein is an Editor, has put out a call for review articles by trainees for a special issue of the journal. The call was made in March 2020 when many labs were ramping down, and trainees began refocusing on review articles and remote work. This call continues the JBME’s long history of supporting junior faculty and trainees and promoting their intellectual contributions during challenging times.
Update 4/29/20: CFP for the special 2021 issue here.
Are you a Penn Bioengineering community member involved in a coronavirus-related project? Let us know! Please reach out to ksas@seas.upenn.edu.
The Office of the Provost awards the Penn Prize for Excellence in Teaching by Graduate Students in recognition of their profound impact on education across the University. Nominations come directly from undergraduate and graduate students in their courses and are narrowed down to ten awardees each year.
Muir has served as a teaching assistant for coursework in Biomaterials with Skirkanich Assistant Professor of Innovation Michael Mitchell and Tissue Engineering with Robert D. Bent Professor Jason Burdick. She is conducting her thesis on granular hydrogels for musculoskeletal tissue repair under Burdick’s advisement. Muir has also received both NSF and Tau Beta Pi Fellowships for her graduate studies.
Andrew Chan (left, M.S.E. in Robotics ‘19) and Omar Abdoun (right, BE M.D./Ph.D. student) present “Cryogripper”
Almost every engineering school in the country offers a course in mechatronics — the overlap of mechanical, electrical, and computer engineering in electromechanical system design — but how many offer a course in biomechatronics? Taught by LeAnn Dourte, Ph.D., a Practice Associate Professor in Bioengineering, Penn Engineering’s Biomechatronics course (BE 570) gives students the chance to think about how the principles of mechatronic design can be used in biological settings involving orthopaedics, cardiovascular systems, and respiration, to name a few.
Throughout the course, students engage in different projects related to circuitry, signal processing, mechanics, motors, and analog controls, eventually applying all of these to biological examples before working on a final culminating project in design teams of two. In a simulation meant to mimic the sort of thinking and design processes that go behind innovations in robotic surgery, students create an electromechanical device that acts as a robotic hand. The catch? The “hand” has to have enough dexterity to pick up a water bead with a slipperiness similar to that of human tissue.
In addition to successfully performing this mechanical task using skills that the students learned throughout the semester, design teams also have to incorporate biological interfaces into the final project, such as using EMG signals to move part of the robotic hand, to give one example. Furthermore, each team needs to have a unique element to their design, whether in the use of a second biological interface, the application of Bluetooth to the system, or even a physical extension of the robotic hand to include the electromechanical equivalents of a shoulder, elbow, or wrist joint.
Carolyn Godone and Mike Furr (both M.S.E. in Bioengineering ‘19) model their design
Students Carolyn Godone and Mike Furr (both M.S.E. in Bioengineering ‘19) created a design inspired by the mechanical iris of a camera lens, using gears to push 3-D printed slices together in a symmetrical pattern to close around an object for pickup. They controlled their unique gripper with a thermal sensing camera that could employ a heat map of the device’s user to rotate, raise, and lower the gripper. Another pair of students, Omar Abdoun (BE M.D./Ph.D. student) and Andrew Chan (M.S.E. in Robotics ‘19), made what they called a “cryogripper”: a tissue moistened with water that freezes on demand when it contacts its target hydrogel. The ice allows the target to be lifted without falling, and the tissue can later be thawed with pumps of warm water to release hydrogel.
After weeks of working on their projects in the George H. Stephenson Foundation Educational Laboratory and Bio-MakerSpace, the class presented their final robotic hands during an open demonstration day (or Demo Day) in the lab. To see all the devices live and in action, watch the Facebook video below!
This past spring, we congratulated the founders of InstaHub, one of the winners of the President’s Innovation Prize. The initial development work for InstaHub was also done in the George H. Stephenson Foundation Educational Laboratory & Bio-MakerSpace here in Penn Bioengineering. Check out the article and video below to learn more about InstaHub’s efforts to fight climate change.
By Lauren Hertzler
As he processed down Locust Walk the day of Commencement, Michael Wong didn’t miss a beat. He took in with pride all his interactions with friends, every cheer from the crowd, and each step on his final day as an undergraduate at Penn.
The first in his family to go to college, Wong would not only graduate that day with a degree from the Wharton School. Thanks to a President’s Innovation Prize (PIP), he’d also graduate with a full-fledged startup and significant funding in hand, ready and willing to take on his next chapter.
“The whole day of graduation I was like ‘Wow, this is amazing,’” recalls Wong. “It’s one of my favorite moments.”
Wong, from Oakland, California, founded InstaHub in 2016. Working with Dayo Adewole, a doctoral candidate in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the pair designed a snap-on motion sensor device that attaches onto existing light switches. It is battery powered, with occupancy sensing capabilities, and is easy to install. With PIP, which awarded Wong $100,000 (plus $50,000 for living expenses), he says he’s been able to do rapid prototyping to move InstaHub forward.
On the second floor of the Pennovation Center, Strella Biotechnology is hard at work turning their student-led startup into a full-fledged company that’s ready to make a major impact in the agricultural sector.
May graduates Katherine Sizov and Malika Shukurova, respectively the CEO and head of R&D at Strella, share a 2019 President’s Innovation Prize, which includes $100,000 of financial support, a $50,000 living stipend for both awardees, and a year of dedicated co-working and lab space at the Pennovation Center. The alumnae and their company are now poised to take on the challenge of $1 trillion worth of food waste.
Strella’s biosensors are designed to give packers real-time data on how ripe their fruits are while being stored between harvesting and selling. Using bio-inspired sensors that measure the ethylene gas produced by fruits as they ripen, Strella successfully “hacked the fruit” to create their patent-pending biosensors. Now, only six months after graduation, Strella has six paying customers and is aiming for $100,000 in sales by the end of the season.
Beyond the work needed to deploy their first paid product, Strella also has a clear view of what needs to be done for future progress of the company. This means running experiments in the lab to refine their current sensors while conducting other experiments that will help the company be able to monitor other types of fresh foods. It’s a job that Shukurova says involves a lot of multitasking and requires an “all-hands” approach to problem solving.
“We set up experiments that run for several days, and during that period we work on different tasks. I prepare for the next set of experiments, Jacob [Jordan] and Katherine travel to our customers to deploy sensors, and Zuyang [Liu]]works on IoT [Internet of Things]. At the end of the day we all come together to discuss results and future plans,” says Shukurova about their company’s work flow.
Last spring, we congratulated Penn Bioengineering graduating senior Oladunni Alomaja (BSE ’19) and her partners at Rebound Liberia on their President’s Engagement Prize. Check out the article and video below on their exciting project.
By Brandon Baker
Fueled by the encouragement and support they received this spring and summer, the three Penn alumni behind Rebound Liberia are now laser-focused on carrying their mission of promoting education and empowerment straight to the basket.
The Rebound Liberia team is led by Princess Aghayere, Oladunni Alomaja, and Summer Kollie, all May Penn graduates who received the President’s Engagement Prize — a $100,000 project prize and $50,000 living stipend per team member, awarded for post-graduation projects that make a positive, lasting difference in the world. The trio, each of whom has connections to West Africa and strives to give back, proposed an NGO that would bridge the literacy gap in post-conflict Liberia between male and female youth through workshops and a basketball program for women.
On Sept. 4, after months of preparation, the team relocated to Monrovia, Liberia, and is settling in.
“I think there’s some cultural shock,” says Aghayere, musing about the adjustment. “But Penn is a great place to travel and a lot of us took advantage of opportunities to travel. I’m not surprised, because this is not my first time on the continent, but there are things unique about Liberia. Getting used to the accents, the weather, the currency — but it’s fun.”
Aghayere and Alomaja were born in Nigeria, while Kollie is from Liberia.
Their days so far, they explain, have been consistently jam-packed with meetings. At present, they’re planning an inter-school basketball tournament to introduce their program to Liberia; in recent weeks, they’ve made connections with school administrators, found their footing in the community, and worked through the logistics of organizing a tournament — which, they note, they had some practice with in 2018, creating a summer basketball clinic in Monrovia, Liberia, for girls that was hosted twice a week.
The upcoming tournament, which will include 120 female players on Nov. 22–24, represents a first step toward their larger intention to build a basketball court and program, and marry that with literacy resources. They aim to serve approximately 60 girls in their program.
“We didn’t think it would be wise to move in September and not have an event until the next June or so, so we thought [of] the tournament,” says Aghayere, explaining the origins of the tournament. “At first, we were thinking we’d have a team and foster the game amongst girls here in Monrovia, and we wanted to include a lot more girls and create this sort of league of our own while introducing ourselves as this new social enterprise in Liberia. We thought a tournament would be a launch of Rebound Liberia and introduce us to the community here.”
In response to the unprecedented challenges presented by the global outbreak of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, 
