Penn Chemistry Professor Makes Inroads in Understanding Biomembranes

Glycans are cell membrane sugars which act like a telecommunications system, sending and receiving information, recognizing and responding to foreign molecules and neighboring cells. Last year the lab of P. Roy Vagelos Professor of Chemistry Virgil Percec was the first to find a way to model these mysterous but vital sugars. Now they have tested the new model in interactions with galectin-8, a cell signaling protein that, when mutated, may contribute to rheumatoid arthritis. By modifying a single building block in Gal-8’s structure, exactly as nature does in a portion of the population, the researchers dramatically impaired its ability to communicate with the artificial membrane, suggesting a possible molecular basis for the disease. Published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the new study demonstrates how researchers can use this membrane model to examine the interactions of cell surfaces with other biological molecules, with far ranging applications in medicine, biochemistry, and biophysics.

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Arts & Sciences News

University of Pennsylvania, Neubauer Family Foundation, and Philadelphia Police Department Partner to Support Police Leadership Education

The first-of-its-kind graduate degree in the U.S. for police leaders launches this fall at the School of Arts & Sciences.

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Marisa C. Kozlowski Named Next Associate Dean for the Natural Sciences

Kozlowski, who joined the Penn faculty in 1997, succeeds Mark Trodden, who transitions to the Dean of Penn Arts & Sciences on June 1.

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One Fourth Year, One Alum Receive 2025 Hertz Fellowship

Eric Tao, C’25, Gr’25 (left), and Suraj Chandran, C’23, were awarded the honor, part of a group of 19 fellows selected this year. Each one receives five years of funding toward a doctoral program.

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Benjamin Nathans Wins 2025 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction

Nathans, Alan Charles Kors Endowed Term Professor of History, won for his book “To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement.”

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Mark Devlin Elected to National Academy of Sciences

He joins three others from Penn to receive the honor this year, all recognized for “distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.”

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Michael Jones-Correa and Sophia Rosenfeld Elected to American Academy of Arts & Sciences

They join three others from the University of Pennsylvania, selected as part of the Academy’s mission to convene leaders from “every field of human endeavor to examine new ideas, address issues of importance to the nation and the world, and work together.”

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