Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

After years of dedicated teaching, mentorship, and service, we celebrate Professor Sue Ann Bidstrup Allen and her remarkable career in CBE. Professor Bidstrup Allen has made a lasting impact on our department and community through her commitment to students, scholarship, and the field of chemical and biomolecular engineering. We are deeply grateful for all she has contributed over the years and wish her the very best in this next chapter. Please join us in congratulating Professor Bidstrup Allen on her retirement!

From energy-positive systems for water hyacinth remediation to processes for alopecia treatments and scalable pharmaceutical manufacturing, the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering's Senior Design 2026 projects addressed challenges across energy, health and sustainability. Student teams explored sustainable chemical pathways, from converting biodiesel byproducts into valuable chemicals to developing greener solvents and advancing circular solutions such as rare-earth recovery and plastic upcycling. Stay tuned as Senior Design continues.

Bringing home first place from the WERC Environmental Design Contest, @CBEPenn juniors Gina Lin, Angelica Dadda, Max Huang and Jack Leitzell designed a system to recover water vapor from power plant cooling towers in arid regions. Working on a challenge proposed by El Paso Electric, the team developed a solution combining a heat exchanger to reduce evaporation with a polymer-coated copper network to condense additional water. Modeled on the Newman Station power plant, their design could recover up to 20 million gallons of water annually, reduce costs by $350,000 per year and achieve payback in just eight years. Advised by Lorena Grundy, Practice Assistant Professor in @CBE_Penn , the team traveled to @nmsu_engr for the national WERC Environmental Design Contest, where students collaborate with industry and government partners to solve real-world environmental challenges. Angelica Dadda was also recognized with the Terry McManus Outstanding Student Award. The trip was supported by @watercenterpenn , @upenncurf , @bentleysystems and @CBEPenn .

A sneak peek of new construction in the heart of the Towne Building. Last week, Penn Engineering leadership toured the future Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (CBE) teaching lab and makerspace. This transformation will support CBE instruction for the next 50 years while investing in the current buildings that allow engineers to grow. With Fall 2026 classes in mind, the project is focused on creating modern, flexible learning environments. By maximizing natural lighting and upgrading core infrastructure such as restrooms and lab tables, this new space will reimagine how students learn, build and collaborate.

Congratulations to Xue Sherry Gao on her lab’s renewal of the Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) from the National Institutes of Health. The $2M+ award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences will provide five years of support for research advancing genome engineering and exploring fungal natural products as a rich source of small-molecule therapeutics. Gao is the Presidential Penn Compact Associate Professor in @CBEPenn . #GenomeEngineering #SyntheticBiology #Biocatalysis #NaturalProducts #NIH

Researchers at Penn Engineering and Rice University have sharpened a gene-editing tool to target single DNA “letters” with greater precision, reducing unintended edits and improving safety. Led by Xue “Sherry” Gao, Presidential Penn Compact Associate Professor in @CBEPenn and @PennBioengineering , and Gang Bao, Foyt Family Professor of @RiceBioe , the team refined a base-editing technology to better model and potentially treat cystic fibrosis, a disease caused by single-letter DNA mutations. By limiting the enzyme’s reach, the redesigned editor dramatically reduced “bystander” edits, bringing more precise genetic therapies one step closer. Read the full story at the link in bio.

Penn Engineering is proud to announce that two faculty members have been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), one of the highest professional honors accorded to engineers. Nader Engheta, H. Nedwill Ramsey Professor in Electrical and Systems Engineering, and Karen Winey, Harold Pender Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and in Materials Science and Engineering, join the ranks of the distinguished members that comprise the NAE Class of 2026. Engheta is known for his pioneering work in metamaterials and photonics, and his lab focuses on the physics and engineering of fields and waves and the various features and characteristics of wave-matter interaction in metamaterials and metasurfaces. He is being recognized "for contributions to the development of metamaterials and their applications." A leading researcher in polymer-based nanostructured materials, Winey and her lab currently concentrate on nanoparticle and polymer dynamics in electrochemical devices. Winey has been elected "for contributions to understanding and advancing polymer nanocomposites and ion-containing polymers.

Foams may look still, but inside they are constantly moving and reorganizing. Penn Engineers discovered that the bubbles in everyday foams, from soap suds to mayonnaise, behave in ways that mathematically resemble how modern AI systems train. Rather than settling into fixed positions as previously thought, the bubbles remain in motion, similar to the constantly adjusting parameters in deep learning models. John C. Crocker, Professor in @CBEPenn and co-senior author of the study, says that this discovery "hints that these [mathematical] tools may be useful far outside of their original context, opening the door to entirely new lines of inquiry." The finding suggests that learning may be a shared organizing principle across physical, biological and computational systems, with implications for adaptive materials and structures inside living cells. Read the full article via the link in bio.

This past Friday, our student-run Graduate Student Symposium brought our community together with partners from industry, national labs, and academia for a day of research, ideas, and new connections. Huge thank you to everyone who presented and attended— and to our sponsors @lonzagroup , #Axalta, and @arkemagroup for support the day! #GSS2025 #PennEngineering

Congratulations to Dohyung Kim, Assistant Professor in @CBEPenn , for being named a 2025 Packard Fellow by The David and Lucile Packard Foundation (@PackardFdn ). Kim's lab investigates the chemical activity produced by solid catalysts down to the atomic level and applies this foundational knowledge to design next-generation catalysts. His work is expanding the field of chemical and biomolecular engineering and actively shaping real-world solutions. The #PackardFellows receive $875,000 in flexible funding over five years, encouraging early-career researchers to take bold risks in science and engineering. Read about the Fellows via the link in bio.

A new review from Penn Engineers reveals how a tumor's physical properties and the tiny messengers it releases, called extracellular vesicles (EVs), could shape the future of cancer treatment and therapies. In their Nature Biomedical Engineering review, doctoral student Kshitiz Parihar and Professor Ravi Radhakrishnan show how EVs carry cargo like proteins and RNA between cells, influencing tumor growth and how cancer spreads. Their research, in collaboration with Professor Jina Ko’s lab, explores how EVs could be used in a new combination drug delivery system. According to Radhakrishnan, these tiny messengers are "like fingerprints of the cancer cells that released them, and they hold a lot of data that we can leverage for immunotherapy, fundamental cancer research and the basics of mechanics in cancer progression.” Read the full article via the link in bio.