As Brianna Leung graduates this week from the M.S.E. in Bioengineering degree program, she passes on Enginuity, a platform designed to connect community-defined challenges with student engineers ready to solve them.
What began as one effort to bridge a gap is now something bigger. A growing network of collaboration, impact, and access.
Next up is Andrew Yao, a second year in Bioengineering, continuing the work and expanding what is possible.
This is how Penn Engineering moves forward. One generation building for the next.
Read more at the link in bio.
@pennengineering #Bioengineering #EngineeringForImpact #StudentInnovation #FutureEngineers #CommunityDriven #AssistiveTechnology #STEMImpact #DesignForGood #ClassOf2026 #PennGrad #Commencement #InnovationInAction #HMSSchoolCP
Researchers at the @uofpenn have developed ApexGO, an AI-powered method for turning promising but imperfect antibiotic candidates into more potent ones.
Published in Nature Machine Intelligence, the study shows how AI can help researchers improve potential antibiotics more efficiently by proposing and testing changes to existing molecules step by step.
“Antibiotic discovery is fundamentally a search problem across an enormous molecular space. ApexGO gives us a way to navigate that space with far more direction,” says César de la Fuente.
Click link to read the full article.
#AIResearch #AIandMedicine
César de la Fuente is Presidential Associate Professor in Psychiatry and Microbiology in @pennmedstudents , in @pennbioengineering and in @cbepenn at Penn Engineering, and in Chemistry in @pennsas at the University of Pennsylvania. Jacob R. Gardner is Assistant Professor in @penn_cis . Marcelo Torres is Research Assistant Professor of Psychiatry in @pennmedstudents . Yimeng Zeng is a doctoral student in @penn_cis . Additional co-authors include co-first author Fangping Wang of @pennmedstudents , @Pennengineering , and @pennsas and Natalie Maus of @Pennengineering .
A spark of discovery. A step into research.
Meet Yerahm Hong (BE’26), a 2026 Rose Undergraduate Research Award recipient.
Her work explores a gene therapy approach designed to intercept faulty genetic instructions linked to rare pediatric epilepsy before they can cause harm.
It’s part of a broader effort to better understand these conditions and move toward more targeted treatments over time.
“I’ve been bitten by the science bug,” she says, and she is channeling it toward a future as a physician-scientist.
🔬 Read her story at the link in bio.
#Bioengineering #GeneTherapy #Neuroscience #WomenInSTEM #STEMStudents #ResearchLife #PennEngineering @pennengineering
Designing for impact starts here.
In Penn ADAPT, students are turning ideas into devices that support real people. From systems that help surgical teams work faster and safer to adaptive equipment shaped through work with Pennsylvania Center For Adapted Sports (@centeronline ), each project begins with a real need.
What makes it work? Collaboration across disciplines. Iteration through real-world testing. And a commitment to building solutions that extend beyond the lab.
These are not just prototypes. They are pathways to access, autonomy and better care.
Explore how students are engineering change: Link In Bio
#AssistiveTechnology #Bioengineering #StudentInnovation #Accessibility #AdaptiveSports @pennengineering
The next generation of bioengineering research starts here.
Congratulations to our 2026 National Science Foundation (@nsfgov ) Graduate Research Fellowship Program awardees. This prestigious fellowship recognizes graduate students at the beginning of their research careers who show exceptional promise in advancing science and engineering.
From current Ph.D. students to incoming researchers, graduating seniors and recent graduates, these awardees represent the strength of a community built on curiosity, rigor, and collaboration.
What begins here shapes what’s possible next.
Learn more at the link in bio.
@pennengineering #NSFGRFP
Reimagining bioengineering starts early.
The Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) hosted its first Bioengineering High School Research Competition, welcoming 44 students to Penn Engineering to take on real design challenges. From CRISPR and drug delivery to microfluidics and AI in medicine, students worked alongside Penn mentors and presented their ideas in Levine Lobby.
“I wanted to host this event largely because of my own experience in high school, when I competed in a similar bioengineering research competition at UC Berkeley, which got me really interested in pursuing BE and scientific research,” said Saw Nwe, BMES Outreach Chair.
“I hope all the students who participated in the event took away something meaningful as well, whether or not they choose to pursue bioengineering in the future.”
“This was truly a team effort, and I wouldn’t have made this event possible without all the support from my peers in BMES and the larger BE community.”
The day also included an EQuad tour, an undergraduate panel, and a chance to connect with the Penn Bioengineering community.
An example of where student leadership becomes real impact.
@pennengineering@pennbmes #bmes #studentleadership #bioengineering
At the Department of Bioengineering’s 2026 Senior Design, students unveiled innovative solutions to real-world problems.
From improving clinical procedures to advancing care for chronic conditions and injuries, the teams presented solutions with real-world impact.
Projects included a device to improve lumbar puncture accuracy, a system to monitor gait and reduce fall risk, a tool to prevent pressure ulcers in wheelchair users, an AI-based triage assistant, a new way to manage phantom limb pain, and many more creative innovations.
More to come as Senior Design 2026 continues.
Celebrating excellence in Bioengineering.
Our 2026 undergraduate award winners reflect the best of what this community stands for: innovation, leadership, and a commitment to making an impact.
From the lab to the classroom and beyond, their work is shaping the future of the field.
Congratulations to all of this year’s honorees.
Link In Bio
@pennengineering
This is how progress builds.
From students stepping onto a global stage to research reshaping how therapies are designed, March highlights the momentum behind Bioengineering.
What you’ll find: • A Luce Scholar expanding the reach of bioengineering • Faculty shaping what’s next in research and education • New ways to improve mRNA vaccines • Rising leaders recognized in biomaterials
The work is moving. And so is what comes next.
Link in bio to read the latest issue.
@pennengineering
Penn Engineers have redesigned a key component of lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), the tiny delivery vehicles behind mRNA vaccines, to send more of their cargo to the lymph nodes.
Because the lymph nodes play a key role in coordinating immunity, the innovation could enable mRNA vaccines that are just as effective at lower doses.
“If we can make the delivery process more precise, we can potentially lower the dose needed to achieve immunity,” says Hannah Yamagata, a doctoral student in @pennbioengineering and first author of the new study.
The new LNPs also expand the potential of mRNA therapies for cancer and autoimmune disease.
Read the full stories at the link in bio.
📷: Top photo, from left: Hannah Geisler, Qiangqiang Shi and Jinjin Wang; Bottom photo, from left: Sherry Du, Hannah Yamagata and Marshall Padilla
Designing the lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) that deliver mRNA therapies remains largely a trial-and-error process, in part because researchers lack the large, systematic datasets needed to train AI models.
@PennEngineering researchers have developed LIBRIS, an automated platform that dramatically accelerates LNP formulation to help close that gap.
Led by Michael J. Mitchell, Associate Professor in @pennbioengineering (BE), and David Issadore, Professor in BE, the study was first-authored by Andrew Hanna, a doctoral student in BE. The team reports in ACS Nano that the system can generate up to 1,000 distinct LNP formulations per hour, roughly 100 times faster than conventional methods.
By producing large, well-defined libraries of nanoparticles, LIBRIS enables the kind of high-quality data required for predictive artificial intelligence. The goal is to move from screening thousands of candidates toward the rational design of LNPs, where researchers can specify desired properties in advance and engineer particles accordingly.
Click link to learn more.
#2026AIMonth #PrecisionMedicine
Celebrating the next generation of innovators.
Four Penn third-year students have been named 2026 Goldwater Scholars, one of the nation’s most prestigious awards for undergraduate researchers.
Among them, bioengineering student Ian Peng is developing synthetic biology tools for precision medicine and gene therapies, work that pushes the boundaries of how we treat disease.
Selected from more than 5,000 nominees nationwide, these scholars reflect the curiosity, rigor, and impact of the Penn Engineering community.
@pennengineering
