News
Archive:
12/10/2024
The shift from an awake state to unconsciousness is a phenomenon that has long captured the interest of scientists and philosophers alike, but how it happens has remained a mystery — until now. Through studies on rats, a team of researchers at Penn State has pinpointed the exact moment of loss of consciousness due to anesthesia, mapping what happens in different brain regions during that moment.
12/9/2024
Keefe Manning, Penn State professor of biomedical engineering with a courtesy appointment as a professor of surgery, was elected fellow of the American Heart Association by the association's stroke council.
12/6/2024
With a five-year, $3.2 million grant from the National Cancer Institute, a team of biomedical engineering researchers will apply ultrasound imaging technology to monitor the transport of genetically engineered, cancer-fighting macrophages into brain tumors.
12/3/2024
Three-dimensional (3D) printing isn’t just a way to produce material products quickly. It also offers researchers a way to develop replicas of human tissue that could be used to improve human health, such as building organs for transplantation, studying disease progression and screening new drugs.
11/26/2024
Combining stem cells and silicon nanowires in lab-grown tissue has shown promise as a step toward a new treatment for heart disease, the leading cause of death worldwide, according to a multi-institutional research team. The U.S. National Institutes of Health’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute recently awarded the team a five-year, $2.6 million grant to move the work forward.
11/22/2024
Microrobots are engineered entities that contain very simple electronic circuits and propulsion machinery that allows them to push or drive forward. Individually, these robots can execute simple behaviors such as forward movements. Collectively, these microrobots can work together with seemingly intelligent behaviors to respond to signals, maintain and restore a larger shape or detect threats. How does intelligent-like behavior emerge in the system of simple interacting units?
11/18/2024
The Penn State Learning Factory will host its end-of-semester showcase at the Bryce Jordan Center on Dec. 10 and its virtual showcase Wednesday, Dec. 11 through Friday, Dec. 20. Both versions of the event are free and open to the public.
11/15/2024
The Penn State College of Engineering invites alumni and friends to support engineering student success through a GivingTuesday gift on Dec. 3 as Penn State celebrates its tenth GivingTuesday.
11/8/2024
A team of researchers led by Nanyin Zhang, the Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Chair in Brain Imaging and professor of biomedical engineering at Penn State, recently published their findings about how blood flow changes to different brain regions relate to what is happening with the brain's neurons.
10/30/2024
Aneesh Kshirsagar, an electrical engineering PhD student advised by Dr. Weihua Guan, received a Best Paper Award at the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) Healthcare Innovation - Point-Of-Care Technologies Conference late last month. The paper's findings could help significantly advance virus testing by providing real-time, accurate diagnostics in settings where complex lab equipment is unavailable.
10/28/2024
Mary Frecker, department head of mechanical engineering, Riess Chair of Engineering and director of the Penn State Center for Biodevices, recently co-authored an article featured in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Select Articles magazine. "What is mechanical engineering" features perspectives from Penn State alumni Michele Beisler and Brain Pandya on their work in the field.
10/25/2024
A team led by Penn State researchers brings traditional black and white diagnostic images of X-rays and traditional CT scans into technicolor. The researchers developed novel contrast agents that target two proteins implicated in osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease commonly characterized as wear-and-tear arthritis.
10/23/2024
From the Chemical and Biomedical Engineering Building on Shortlidge Road to offices, labs and classrooms around the globe, nearly 10,000 alumni, 500 undergraduate and graduate students, and 45 faculty, post-doctoral candidates and staff call the Penn State Department of Chemical Engineering (CHE) home. This year, the department is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the establishment of a chemical engineering degree program at Penn State in 1924-25 and the first 11 chemical engineering bachelor’s degrees granted in May 1925.
10/23/2024
Julianna Simon, an associate professor of acoustics and biomedical engineering, was awarded a Frederic Lizzi Early Career Award by the International Society of Therapeutic Ultrasound in Taipei, Taiwan last month. This prestigious award recognizes and celebrates the achievements of individuals early in their careers in the field of therapeutic ultrasound.
10/11/2024
Several medications are available to treat high blood pressure, but more than 10 million Americans do not respond to the treatments. Tao Zhou, assistant professor of engineering science and mechanics and of biomedical engineering at Penn State, received a five-year, $1.83 million grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health to develop a soft and stretchable tissue-like electronic device for the treatment of resistant high blood pressure.
10/11/2024
Spencer Szczesny, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Penn State, was recently named a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
10/11/2024
A toxic version of a certain protein may affect brain, spinal cord and skeletal muscle tissues differently, leading to the complex development and progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), according to a new study by a team of researchers from Penn State College of Medicine.
10/10/2024
The J. Jeffrey and Ann Marie Fox Graduate School at Penn State recognized 110 graduate students, including 20 College of Engineering students, as recipients of the 2024-2025 University Graduate Fellowships. These students were honored at a reception held in the Bryce Jordan Center on Oct. 3.
9/11/2024
Three potentially high-impact, high-risk research projects have been selected to receive seed funding for the latest round of the Huck Innovative and Transformational Seed (HITS) Fund initiative.
8/19/2024
Invent Penn State’s?Summer Founders Program, which provides each student team with a $15,000 grant to work on their startups over the summer at?Happy Valley LaunchBox powered by PNC Bank, concluded with a final "Demo Day” on Aug. 7.
8/12/2024
Julianna Simon, associate professor of acoustics and of biomedical engineering, has been named the interim director of acoustics at Penn State. Penn State News spoke with Simon hear her perspectives on the field of acoustics, the direction and goals for the Penn State Graduate Program in Acoustics and Simon’s own professional background and research.
8/6/2024
A team of Penn State researchers led by Wang was recently awarded a four-year, $2.02 million National Institutes of Health grant to explore how to safely add growth factors to collagen used by doctors for tissue repair.
8/5/2024
A discovery that uncovered the surprising way atoms arrange themselves and find their preferred neighbors in multi-principal element alloys could enable engineers to “tune” these unique and useful materials for enhanced performance in specific applications ranging from advanced power plants to aerospace technologies, according to the researchers who made the finding.
7/4/2024
Treating cancer can sometimes feel like a game of Whac-A-Mole. The disease can become resistant to treatment, and clinicians never know when, where and what resistance might emerge, leaving them one step behind. But a team led by Penn State researchers has found a way to reprogram disease evolution and design tumors that are easier to treat.
6/27/2024
Six College of Engineering baccalaureate graduates have been selected for the U.S. National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF-GRFP). Four engineering graduates were also named honorable mentions for the NSF-GRFP.
6/26/2024
To advance soft robotics, skin-integrated electronics and biomedical devices, researchers at Penn State have developed a 3D-printed novel material for use in sensors that is soft and stretchable — important traits for matching the properties of tissues and organs —and that self-assembles. Their approach employs a process that eliminates many of the drawbacks of previous fabrication methods, such as less conductivity or device failure.
6/7/2024
A capstone course taught in the spring of 2024 focused specifically on adaptive technology, which is a device or piece of technology designed to provide physical or cognitive assistance.
5/29/2024
Amir Sheikhi, assistant professor of chemical engineering and Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Early Career Chair in Biomaterials and Regenerative Engineering, was invited to serve as a member of the Biomaterials and Biointerfaces Study Section of the Bioengineering Sciences & Technologies Integrated Review Group, which is part of the Center of Scientific Review for the National Institutes of Health.
5/21/2024
Four projects were recently awarded Penn State Commercialization GAP funding. The GAP Fund, formerly known as the Fund for Innovation, aims to accelerate the development of promising research across the University by closing the funding gaps between proof-of-concept research and readiness for commercialization.
5/7/2024
Cellulose, which helps give plant cell walls their rigid structure, holds promise as a renewable raw material for biofuels — if researchers can accelerate the production process. New research led by Penn State investigators has revealed how several molecular roadblocks slow this process.
5/3/2024
In 2020, the A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation committed $15.5 million to create the A. James Clark Scholars Program in the College of Engineering to support high-achieving engineering students with significant financial need. This spring, the first cohort of A. James Clark Scholars will graduate from the Penn State College of Engineering.
4/25/2024
The Penn State College of Engineering has named its student marshals for the spring 2024 commencement ceremony.
4/16/2024
Six Penn State startups, all of which were founded or co-founded by students in the College of Engineering, have been selected to participate in the 2024 Invent Penn State Summer Founders program.
4/15/2024
Penn State's Rock Ethics Institute has announced the winners of the 2024 Stand Up Awards for Undergraduate Ethical Leadership: Triniti Freeman, a third-year student majoring in nursing; Vancie Peacock, a fourth-year student majoring in biological engineering; and Jenna Seigworth, a fourth-year student majoring in English.
4/15/2024
For the 2024-25 academic year, the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences has appointed William and Wendy Korb Early Career Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering Scott Medina to be a Huck Leadership Fellow.
4/4/2024
Eight College of Engineering graduate students were among the forty Penn State graduate students named recipients of Penn State’s most prestigious annual graduate student recognition awards.
3/27/2024
A team of Penn State researchers has developed a new synthetic material that could enable scientists to more easily study how microorganisms interact with the gastrointestinal (GI) system. The material might eventually provide a cheaper, more accessible way for researchers to screen drugs that impact gut infections, metabolic disorders like obesity and diabetes, and inflammatory bowel disorders.
3/26/2024
Penn State News spoke to Professor Pak Kin Wong about his recently published paper that discusses the methods available for incorporating microbiota analysis into clinical decision-making, the challenges of doing so and the need for new technologies to capitalize on the potential of microbiota’s role in medicine.
3/26/2024
Two engineering faculty members were among the six recipients of the 2024 Faculty Scholar Medals for Outstanding Achievement. Enrique Gomez, professor of chemical engineering in the College of Engineering and by courtesy materials science and engineering in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, and Tak-Sing Wong, professor of mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering in the College of Engineering, were both recognized with the award.
3/21/2024
Blood vessels engineered from stem cells could help solve several research and clinical problems, from potentially providing a more comprehensive platform to screen if drug candidates can cross from the blood stream into the brain to developing lab-grown vascular tissue to support heart transplants, according to Penn State researchers. Led by Xiaojun “Lance” Lian, associate professor of biomedical engineering and of biology, the team discovered the specific molecular signals that can efficiently mature nascent stem cells into the endothelial cells that comprise the vessels and regulate exchanges to and from the blood stream.
3/18/2024
Twelve Penn State engineering graduates have been selected to receive the Penn State College of Engineering’s Outstanding Engineering Alumni Award.
3/11/2024
A newly developed “GPS nanoparticle” injected intravenously can home in on cancer cells to deliver a genetic punch to the protein implicated in tumor growth and spread, according to researchers from Penn State. They tested their approach in human cell lines and in mice to effectively knock down a cancer-causing gene, reporting that the technique may potentially offer a more precise and effective treatment for notoriously hard-to-treat basal-like breast cancers.
3/11/2024
A team of researchers led by Huanyu “Larry” Cheng, the James L. Henderson, Jr. Memorial Associate Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics (ESM) at Penn State, created a highly-sensitive and cost-effective sensor to better monitor the concentration of dopamine and tyrosine — a neurotransmitter and an amino acid, respectively, that are present in the brain — in sweat or urine.
3/5/2024
For soft tissue to recover and regrow, it needs blood vessels to grow to deliver oxygen and nutrients. Sluggish vascularization, however, can slow or even prevent recovery and regrowth of lost or damaged soft tissue after a severe injury or serious illness such as cancer. To speed up the formation and patterning of new blood vessels, Penn State researchers have combined a novel biomaterial with a microsurgical approach used in reconstructive surgery, enabling improved recovery of soft tissue.
3/1/2024
Fat tissue holds the key to 3D printing layered living skin and potentially hair follicles, according to researchers who recently harnessed fat cells and supporting structures from clinically procured human tissue to precisely correct injuries in rats. The advancement could have implications for reconstructive facial surgery and even hair growth treatments for humans.
1/29/2024
An article in the journal Science discusses a recently published study led by Penn State researchers that investigated the optomotor response in flies. The article focuses on the work of Jean-Michel Mongeau, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and of biomedical engineering, and mechanical engineering doctoral student Benjamin Cellini.
1/29/2024
The Penn State Summer Translational Cardiovascular Science Institute (STCSI) program is accepting applications from now until March 1. The program is open to any undergraduate student with a demonstrated interest in cardiovascular science.
1/12/2024
To improve the success rate of drug repurposing and determine effective treatment doses, the Penn State researchers developed a model that predicts effective doses for repurposed drugs.
1/2/2024
Pak Kin Wong, professor of biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering, was elected a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in class VI – Technical and Environmental Sciences.
