Engineered Lipid Nanoparticles Reprogram Immune Metabolism for Better mRNA Vaccines News / March 17, 2026 Penn Engineers have redesigned the lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) used to deliver mRNA vaccines, showing that subtle changes in lipid chemistry can influence immune cell metabolism and reduce inflammation. The findings suggest that lipid nanoparticles can actively shape how immune cells respond, opening new avenues for vaccines and immunotherapies. Read More
David Meaney on Penn’s Research Enterprise News / March 12, 2026 Penn Today spoke with David Meaney, Vice Provost for Research and Solomon R. Pollack Professor in Bioengineering, about research at Penn — its current focus and plans for its growth and evolution in the continued quest to help make lives better. Read More
Penn Engineering to Host India Technology Forum in Mumbai News / March 10, 2026 Faculty experts in AI and bioengineering will join Dean Vijay Kumar, Rajeev Misra and Hital Meswani for a global innovation forum in Mumbai. Read More
New Robotic Microfluidic Platform Brings AI to Lipid Nanoparticle Design News / March 9, 2026 LIBRIS, an automated microfluidic platform, dramatically accelerates the formulation of lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), the delivery vehicles behind mRNA vaccines and gene therapies. By generating on the order of 1,000 distinct formulations per hour, the system could enable the large, systematic datasets needed to train predictive AI models. Read More
Engineers Sharpen Gene-Editing Tools To Target Cystic Fibrosis News / February 23, 2026 Engineered A3G base editors reduce unintended “bystander” edits, yielding safer potential treatments for cystic fibrosis and more accurate models for drug testing. Read More
An Innovative AI Tool to Improve Health Care Delivery in Rural India News / February 6, 2026 Prithvi Parthasarathy, a fourth-year neuroscience major pursuing an accelerated master's in Bioengineering, designed an AI triage tool to improve hospital efficiency and patient care. Read More
The Small, High-Tech Beanie Protecting Premature Babies News / February 5, 2026 The Sonura Beanie, designed by former Penn Engineering students, is calming babies in the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania's intensive care nursery. Read More
Sophia Tang Wins CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award News / January 23, 2026 Sophia Tang, an undergraduate researcher at Penn Engineering, has received the CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award for her pioneering work in generative AI for biology, advancing theoretical machine learning methods for therapeutic and biological design. Read More
The Path Forward: Penn Engineering 2030 News / January 13, 2026 The cover story of the 2025-2026 issue of Penn Engineering magazine explores Penn Engineering 2030, the School’s new strategic plan, which charts a bold, collaborative path forward in this new era for higher education. Read More
20 Breakthroughs of 2025 News / January 12, 2026 From ancient tombs and tiny robots to personalized gene editing and AI weather models, Penn’s 2025 research portfolio showed how curiosity paired with collaboration moves knowledge into impact and stretches across disciplines and continents. Read More
