NEWS + EVENTS

December 2 – Prof. de la Fuente's Awards and Accolades are highlighted by Penn Medicine News.

November – Our paper describing the first antibiotics discovered in ancient organisms is covered by the Spanish media.

November 15 – Our paper describing the first antibiotics discovered in ancient organisms is published in bioRxiv.

November 15 – Prof. de la Fuente is named a Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate.

November 10 – The de la Fuente lab's work mining the human proteome to identify novel antibiotics is covered by Diane Williams from DTRA.

October 26 – Prof. de la Fuente was invited by NIH to participate in a roundup post focused on antibiotic resistance.

September 21 – The National Institute of General Medical Sciences' Biomedical Beat Blog published an interview with Cesar de la Fuente.

August 23 – A review by the de la Fuente Lab titled Molecular tools for probing the microbiome was published in Current Opinion in Structural Biology.

August 4 – Chemical Science published the paper titled An N-capping asparagine-lysine-proline (NKP) motif contributes to a hybrid flexible/stable multifunctional peptide scaffold that was led by Octavio Franco and David Craik's groups and that the de la Fuente Lab contributed to.

July 18 – Biomaterials published Debulking different Corona (SARS-COV-2 delta, omicron, OC43) and influenza (H1N1, H3N2) virus strains by plant viral trap proteins in chewing gums to decrease infection and transmission, a project led by the Daniell Lab that the de la Fuente Lab contributed to.

June 16 – Medical News Today published an article titled Algorithm finds natural, unresistable antibiotic hiding in bacteria regarding the research outlined in this paper published in Science that includes an interview with Prof. de la Fuente regarding drug-resistant bacteria.

June 2 – Postdoctoral fellow Angelica Cesaro, Ph.D., received the Second Place CiPD Image Award at the 2022 Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CIPD) Symposium for her poster on the ACS Nano paper of the same name, Synthetic Antibiotic Derived from Sequences Encrypted in Proteins from Human Plasma.

May 17 – The de la Fuente Lab is happy to be involved in a great collaborative work led by the Tishkoff Lab titled Impact of natural selection on global patterns of genetic variation and association with clinical phenotypes at genes involved in SARS-CoV-2 infection that was published in PNAS.

May 15 – A review article that Prof. de la Fuente contributed to entitled Probiotics: insights and new opportunities for Clostridioides difficile intervention was published in Critical Reviews in Microbiology.

May 12 – A new article by WIRED titled These Nanobots Can Swim Around a Wound and Kill Bacteria features the research with nanobots highlighted in the de la Fuente lab's new paper in ACS Nano.

May 6 – Nature Biotechnology published a News & Views article titled Antibiotic Discovery with Machine Learning which was written by Cesar de la Fuente.

April 29 – The lab's paper titled Autonomous Treatment of Bacterial Infections in Vivo Using Antimicrobial Micro- and Nanomotors was published in ACS Nano.

April 27 – Cesar de la Fuente was announced as an awardee of a 2022 Royal Spanish Society of Chemistry (RSEQ) Young Investigator Award.

March 31 – Digital Discovery published the review article titled Deep generative models for peptide design. It was written by de la Fuente Lab members Fangping Wan and Daphne Kontogiorgos-Heintz. Congratulations Fangping and Daphne!

March 31 – The lab's paper The wasp venom antimicrobial peptide polybia-CP and its synthetic derivatives display antiplasmodial and anticancer properties is among Bioengineering & Translational Medicine's top cited articles.

March 11 – ACS in Focus published Machine Learning for Drug Discovery, a book developed in the de la Fuente Lab that acts as a primer for students new to Machine Learning.

February 12 – El País published an interview with Cesar de la Fuente about his ongoing projects and scientific research within the Machine Biology Group.

February 7 – The de la Fuente Lab's low-cost COVID-19 tests were featured in an article published by El País in Spanish and English.

February 4 – Voz de America published an article and video interview with Cesar de la Fuente about the low-cost COVID-19 antigen tests developed by the lab.

January 25 – RTVE Noticias interviewed Cesar de la Fuente for a video about the de la Fuente Lab's development of COVID-19 tests.

January 21 – Our latest Nature BME paper will be featured on the January 2022 cover of Nature Biomedical Engineering.

January 20 – Our latest Nature BME paper is the fourth most-viewed article published in Nature Biomedical Engineering on a list of 25 articles ranked by unique pageviews.

December 14 – Cesar de la Fuente appeared on the Forbes Top 50 Awarded Spaniards list.

November 30 – Economia 3 published an article about the de la Fuente Lab's work on COVID-19 rapid tests.

November 30 – WIRED published an article An AI Finds Superbug-Killing Potential in Human Proteins about our latest Nature BME paper.

November 26 – A Behind The Paper article was posted on the Nature Bioengineering community page about our latest Nature BME paper.

November 24 – Cesar de la Fuente is on Clarivate's 2021 annual list of Highly Cited Researchers, a list of the most highly cited scientists in the past decade with publications that are among the top one percent in the citation distribution in their fields.

November 16 – iSanidad's article Un científico español descubre más de 2.600 antibióticos encriptados en proteínas del cuerpo humano covers our latest Nature BME paper.

November 15 – El Pais published an article about the research in our Nature BME paper as well as an article describing a variety of research on the human proteome by different groups including the de la Fuente Lab.

November 14 – ABC Galicia and el Correo Gallego published interviews with Cesar de la Fuente.

November 8 – NIUS published an interview with Cesar de la Fuente regarding our latest Nature BME paper.

November 8 – Penn Today published an article that covers our latest Nature BME paper.

November 8 – An article entitled Hallan docenas de nuevos antibioticos naturales dentro del cuerpo humano is published in Muy Interesante that covers our latest Nature BME paper.

November 8 – GEN spoke with Prof. de la Fuente regarding the lab's work designing an algorithm to discover thousands of antimicrobial peptides in the human proteome that is detailed in our latest Nature BME paper.

November 6 – Faro de Vigo article Un cientifico gallego identifica unos 2.000 antibioticos 'codificados' en el organismo covers our newly published research from our latest Nature BME paper.

November 6 – La Opinion A Coruna publishes an article Una nueva via frente a las 'superbacterias' about the de la Fuente lab's new publication in Nature BME.

November 4 – Penn Engineering Today posts the article Penn Researchers Show 'Encrypted' Peptides Could be Wellspring of Natural Antibiotics about the lab's new publication in Nature BME.

November 4 – GCiencia and AAAS published information about the de la Fuente lab's work discovering encrypted antibiotics in the human proteome that is featured in our latest Nature BME paper.

November 4 – The de la Fuente Lab's new paper Mining for encrypted peptide antibiotics in the human proteome was published in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

October 15 – Newsy visited the de la Fuente Lab to discuss the path to FDA approval for our COVID-19 rapid tests.

September 29 – The lab's paper "Antimicrobial Peptides: Potential Therapeutics Against Drug-Resistant Pulmonary Infections" is now published in Archivos de Bronconeumologia.

September 26 – An article on antibiotic resistance and artificial intelligence published on Medium refers to the de la Fuente Lab's publication in Communications Biology on the same topic.

September 10 – Forbes Spain names Cesar one of their 100 Most Creative Spanish Individuals in the Business World.

September 9 – Communications Biology publishes the lab's paper on "Accelerating antibiotic discovery through artificial intelligence".

September 1 – Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews publishes the lab's paper "Probiotic engineering strategies for the heterologous production of antimicrobial peptides".

September 1 – Three University of Pennsylvania Ph.D. rotation students join the de la Fuente Lab: Patrick Exconde (BMB), Hannah Kim (BMB) and Jacqueline Peng (BE).

September 1 – Professor Katya Anaya from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte in Brazil joins the de la Fuente Lab through the Fulbright Scholar Program for a project on food preservation and safety.

August 31 – ACS Infectious Diseases publishes a paper on research surrounding a synthetic peptide derived from scorpion venom.

August 16 – Fangping Wan, Ph.D. joins the de la Fuente Lab as a postdoctoral fellow.

August 9 – Our faster and cheaper COVID-19 testing with pencil lead is featured in Penn Engineering Today.

August 4 – Cesar is announced as a member of the 2021-2022 ASM Distinguished Lecturer roster.

July 27 – The paper on the Low-cost Electrochemical Advanced Diagnostic (LEAD) COVID-19 test that was developed in the lab is now published in PNAS.

July 23 – Penn Health-Tech announces the 11 projects selected for the 2021-2022 cohort, including our "Low-cost diagnostic platform: For COVID-19 and other emerging pathogens".

July 15 – Angelica Cesaro, Ph.D. joins the de la Fuente Lab as a postdoctoral fellow.

July 14 – Undergraduate lab member Daphne Kontogiorgos-Heintz is awarded Penn Bioengineering's Blair Research Fellowship.

July 7 – Our paper "Low-cost biosensor for rapid detection of SARS-CoV-2 at the point of care" is published in Matter.

June 10 – ACS Infectious Diseases published the paper "Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing of Antimicrobial Peptides Requires New and Standardized Testing Structures".

April 1 – Daphne Kontogiorgos-Heintz is awarded the Penn Engineering Littlejohn Undergraduate Research Fellowship.

March 18 – Daphne Kontogiorgos-Heintz is awarded the Grant for Faculty Mentoring Undergraduate Research from the University of Pennsylvania Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships (CURF).

March 17 – The de la Fuente Lab's paper "Molecular Dynamics for Antimicrobial Peptide Discovery" is now published in Infection and Immunity.

February 4 – A paper titled "Synthetic Biology and Computer-Based Frameworks for Antimicrobial Peptide Discovery" is published in ACS Nano.

January 13 – Great to start the year with a publication. Our new paper "Coatable and Resistance-Proof Ionic Liquid for Pathogen Eradication" is out in ACS Nano!

January 11 – Our COVID-19 rapid test begins clinical trials. Here an article which gives more details about our work from Penn Today.

January 5 – The lab's work on rapid and low-cost COVID-19 diagnostics is featured by Penn Medicine.

December 9 – Technical.ly published an article about the development of COVID-19 rapid tests by the de la Fuente Lab.

November 25 – Our new paper on "Light-emitting probes for labeling peptides" is published in Cell Reports Physical Science.

November 20 – Our paper was highlighted by the editors of Science in the Editors' Choice section.

November – Cesar wins the AIChE's 35 Under 35 Award.

October 30 – Cesar was selected as a chair of panel in the World Laureates Forum, Computational Biology Summit.

October 27 – Our paper "Repurposing a peptide toxin from wasp venom into antiinfectives with dual antimicrobial and immunomodulatory properties" describing the conversion of a wasp venom into novel antibiotics is covered by Penn Medicine, El Pais, and SciShow, among other media outlets.

October – Cesar is invited to an AIChE podcast to discuss his recent Langer Prize.

October – Cesar is awarded NIH MIRA Investigator.

October – Cesar wins the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF) Young Investigator Award.

October 18 – Our new paper on "Strategies for antimicrobial peptide coatings on medical devices: a review and regulatory science perspective" is published in Critical Reviews in Biotechnology.

September 22 – Cesar was selected by the US National Academies to serve on the committee to "Exam long-term health and economic effects of antimicrobial resistance in the US".

September 18 – We are proud to be a signatory (among > 10,000 others) of this important letter published in Science.

July 27 – Cesar is interviewed by the Spanish Press (La Opinion and La Voz de Galicia) on winning the inaugural NEMO Prize.

July 23 – The lab wins Inaugural Nemirovsky Engineering and medicine Opportunity (NEMO Prize) and was highlighted by the Penn Bioengineering Blog, the Penn Center for Innovation, and Medium.

July 12 – Our new paper on "Physical methods for controlling bacterial colonization on polymer surfaces" is out in Biotechnology Advances.

July 9 – Cesar published a review entitled "The value of antimicrobial peptides in the age of resistance" in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.

July 7 – We just published a review on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing of Antimicrobial Peptides to Better Predict Efficacy.

July 5 – Cesar is interviewed by the Philadelphia Inquirer on the impact of tighter visa restrictions on his research lab team.

June 5 – Cesar was interviewed by Nature Communications Biology.

June 4 – Cesar's ACS Infectious Diseases Young Award and his selection to In Vivo's "Rising Leaders" in the life sciences list are highlighted by Penn Medicine.

May 11-17 – Numerous media outlets, including La Voz de Galicia, GCiencia, La Opinion, ABC interviewed Cesar and covered the recent announcement of his ACS Infectious Diseases Young Investigators Award.

May 16 – Marcelo publishes a new paper in Bioengineering & Translational Medicine describing the previously undisclosed antiplasmodial and anticancer properties of venom from wasps.

May 8 – Lucia Ageitos and Cesar de la Fuente published an article in the Spanish newspaper La Opinion discussing the challenges of COVID-19 for science and our society as a whole.

May 7 – New paper published in Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry: "Host defence cryptides from human apolipoproteins: applications in medicinal chemistry".

May 5 – The lab was highlighted in the featured projects of the COVID-19 HPC Consortium.

May 4 – Cesar is selected as one of 30 Rising Leaders In The Life Science. More details.

April 25 – Cesar discussed in a Spanish newspaper the role of secondary bacterial infections in pandemics in general and COVID-19 in particular.

March 9 – Cesar spoke with Quanta Magazine about a new AI breakthrough and his related research.

March 5 – Cesar gave a talk at the Center for Cellular and Molecular Therapeutics (CCMT) Seminar Series at UPenn.

March 3 – Cesar's Langer Prize was published in this week's issue of the Almanac.

March 2 – Cesar was selected as Scialog Fellow by RCSA, the Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group and the Frederick Gardner Cottrell Foundation.

February 28 – Cesar gave a talk at the Penn Institute for Computational Science Colloquim Series at UPenn.

February 27 – Cesar spoke with Vox about a new AI breakthrough and his related research.

February 19 – Cesar gave a talk at the Inflammation Working Group Seminars at the Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, PA.

February 13 – Cesar gave a talk at the Frontiers in Science Seminar Series UPenn Dental Medicine at UPenn.

February 8 – Cesar was featured in the Penn CAMB Newsletter.

January 8 – Cesar's Langer Prize Fellowship was featured on the AlChE website.

December 24 – The Machine Biology Group’s work was highlighted by the Dept. of BE at UPenn's round-up of the year features stories.

December 16 – Cesar and Esther were featured in Penn Bioengineering Blog for their publication in Trends in Immunology.

December 2 – The Machine Biology Group was featured in Penn Today.

November 19 – Cesar was featured in newspaper Quincemil.

November 10 – Cesar was awarded the inaugural Langer Prize by the AlChE Foundation.

November 8 – Marcelo Torres was invited to give a talk at the World Anti-Microbial Resistance Congress USA 2019.

November 2 – Cesar gave a keynote lecture as a recipient of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers Young Investigators Award.

October 31 – Cesar gave a keynote lecture at the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers Young Investigators Award.

October 29-30 – Cesar was invited to be the chair at the AlChE Annual Meeting - Microbes at Biomedical Interfaces Topical Conference in Orlando, FL.

October 25 – Cesar was invited to give a talk at the Penn Institute of Immunology RIP Seminar Series.

October 14 – Cesar was selected by the editors of the Journal of Molecular Biology as one of the most remarkable early career researchers able to inspire and shape the direction of their respective fields.

October 10 – Cesar was invited to give a talk at I International Microiota Conference in A Coruna.

September 30 – Cesar was invited to give a talk at the Penn Prokaryotic Seminar Series.

September 25 – Cesar gave a talk at the Microbiome Talk UPenn.

September 17 – Cesar gave his TR35 Innovations Under 35 talk at EmTech.

September 4 – Cesar was featured in The Daily Pennsylvanian.

September 3 – Cesar's Penn Presidential Professorship highlighted by Penn Almanac.

August 23 – Cesar gave a talk at the CAMB-MVP Research Retreat in Swarthmore, PA.

August 14 – Official welcome from the Department of Bioengineering.

July 15 – Our paper In silico optimization of a guava antimicrobial peptide enables a combinatorial exploration for peptide design was named The Top 50: Chemistry and Materials Science papers from Nature Communications in 2018.

July 12 – Cesar is invited to give the commencement speech for la Caixa Fellowship cerimony in Barcelona, Spain.

July 11 – Cesar was named Penn Presidential Professor.

June 25 – Cesar was named to the TR35 for “Top Young Innovators Under 35” by MIT Technology Review.

June 24 – Cesar gave a talk at the UPenn Biochemistry and Biophysics Seminar (UPenn).

May 14 – Cesar gave a talk at the International Infection, Immunity and Inflammation Conference (I4C).

May 6 – Cesar was named GEN Top 10 Under 40.

May 3 – Cesar gave a talk at the Clinical Neurosciences Training Seminar (CNTS) Seminar Series, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.

February 24 - March 1 – Cesar is invited to speak at the 2019 Gordon Research Conference of Antimicrobial Peptides. Renaissance Tuscany Il Ciocco. Lucca (Barga), Italy.

February 22 – Cesar is invited to speak at ICTP-CSIC in Madrid, Spain.

February 7 – Cesar is invited to give an Amgen Seminar Series in Chemical Engineering at the University of Rhode Island. Providence, RI, USA.

January 22 – Cesar is invited to give a talk at the 8th Annual Symposium Synthetic Biology Center at MIT. Cambridge, MA, USA.

January 3 – Marcelo's paper on Peptide Design Principles for Antimicrobial Applications is published in the Journal of Molecular Biology.

December 7 – Marcelo's paper where we convert a toxic wasp venom peptide into a viable antibiotic is published in Nature Communications Biology. A Behind the Paper piece was published accompanying the paper. This work was covered by numerous news outlets including MIT News, Boston Herald, Forbes, Daily Mail, La Voz de Galicia (in Spanish), La Opinión (in Spanish), El Correo Gallego (in Spanish) and others, and was a trending topic on Reddit.

December 7 – Cesar is invited to give a talk at the 6th Annual Meeting of the Boston Area Antibiotic Resistance Network. The Starr Center 185 Cambridge St, Boston, MA, USA.

November 16-17 – Cesar is invited to give the Keynote Address at the XLV Reunión Anual SOGAPAR. Ferrol, Galicia, Spain.

November 7-8 – Cesar is invited to give a talk at the Penn 5th Microbiome Symposium. University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, PA, USA.

October 29-30 – Cesar is invited to give a talk at the AIChE Annual Meeting - Microbes at Biomedical Interfaces Topical Conference, and is also invited to serve as AIChE Session CoChair. Pittsburgh, PA, USA.

October 18 – Cesar is invited to give a talk at the Microbial Systems Seminar Series at MIT. Cambridge, MA, USA.

October 11 – Cesar is invited to give a talk at the Penn Psychiatry Research Day. Philadelphia, PA, USA.

October 9 – Cesar is invited to give a talk at the MIT Biological Engineering Retreat in Boston, MA, USA.

May 30 – Cesar is invited to give the Keynote Address, Annual Infectious Diseases Consortium (IDC) retreat at the Harvard Infectious Diseases Consortium. Harvard Medical School. Boston, MA, USA.

April – Cesar is invited to give a talk at University of Pennsylvania.

March – Cesar is invited to give a talk at Cornell University.

March – Cesar is invited to give a talk at University of Colorado Boulder.

March – Cesar is invited to give a talk at Colorado State University.

March – Cesar is invited to give a talk at University of California, Berkeley.

February – Cesar is invited to give a talk at Carnegie Mellon University.

February – Cesar is invited to give a talk at Vanderbilt University.

February – Cesar is invited to give a talk at Boston University.

January – Cesar is invited to give a talk at Boston College.

December – Our new review on Neuromicrobiology: how microbes influence the brain is out! The paper was selected to be featured in ACS Editors’ Choice.

December – Our collaboration with MIT colleagues is published in Advanced Materials: 3D printing of living responsive materials and devices.

Here is the MIT News coverage!

November – Our work was featured in Popular Science!

November – Our work was featured in MIT News!

November – Cesar has been selected as a top Spanish innovator.

November – Cesar was featured in a Spanish documentary about antibiotic resistance. Here are the trailer and a section of the documentary.

November – Cesar is Interviewed by Dr. Stephen Hoare and Dr. Sophie Rose during the 8^th International Meeting on Antimicrobial Peptides (IMAP 2017) in Copenhagen in August 2017.

November – Cesar is invited to attend the 2017 Boston Latino 30 Under 30 ceremony.

October – Cesar attends the Boston Area Antibiotic Resistance Network Annual Meeting 2017 at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

October – Our new paper on constrained antimalarial agents derived from the peptide hormone angiotensin II is published in Scientific Reports.

September – Cesar gives a talk at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.

August – Our new paper describing a computational-experimental platform for the discovery of novel peptide antibiotics in complex biological information is published in ACS Synthetic Biology.

Here is MIT News coverage.

August – Cesar is invited to give a talk at the 7th International Meeting on Antimicrobial Peptides in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Coverage by MIT News and by La Voz de Galicia.

July – Cesar is invited to participate as Discussion Leader in the “Synthetic Biology” Gordon Research Seminar (GRS). Stoweflake Conference Center, Stowe, VT, USA.

July – Cesar participates in the 5th annual workshop on “Micro- and Nanotechnologies for Medicine: Emerging Frontiers and Applications”, organized by the Biomaterials Innovation Research Center, Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

July – Our paper describing CO2-reactive ionic liquid surfactants that can reversibly bind to DNA upon bubbling with CO2 and N2 is published in Langmuir.

July – Cesar is invited to give a talk at the University of Connecticut. Storrs, CT, USA.

June – Our new paper on antibiofilm ciprofloxacin-nitroxide hybrids is out in the European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.

June – Our new review on precision antimicrobials is out in Current Opinion in Microbiology. Great collaboration with Francis Mojica, co-discoverer of CRISPR.

June – Cesar completes the MIT Kaufman Teaching Certificate Program (KTCP)!

May – Cesar is invited to serve in the committee for Alex Guevara’s Master’s thesis defense at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

May – Cesar is invited to give a talk at the 13^th Annual Protein Engineering Summit. Boston, MA, USA.

April – Our latest work describing a genetic algorithm-based computational approach for "evolving" naturally occurring peptides into "artificial" antibiotic candidates is published in Nature Communications.

April – Cesar is invited to give a talk at Massachusetts General Hospital. Charlestown, MA, USA.

April – Cesar is invited to give an Invited Seminar at Penn State University, PA, USA.

March – Cesar is selected as an ACS Nano Fellow and is invited to the first ACS Nano Kavli Futures Symposium. ACS Nano Kavli Futures Symposium. University of California-Los Angeles, CA, USA.

March – Cesar is invited to give an Invited Seminar at the California Institute of Technology. Pasadena, CA, USA.

January – Our paper describing a novel yeast-based synthetic biology platform for antimicrobial peptide production is published in ACS Synthetic Biology!

January – Our paper on versatile and on-demand biologics co-production in yeast is published in Nature Communications.

December – Cesar gives a talk at Antibacterial Discovery and Development Summit. Boston, MA, USA

October – Cesar was invited to attend EmTech at MIT Media Lab!

October – Cesar was selected as MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35. Madrid, Spain. Read Article

July – Cesar gives a talk at Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia. Barcelona, Spain.

June – Cesar presents at the International Biochemistry and Molecular Biology meeting. Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil.

June – Cesar gives a talk at University of Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil.

May – Cesar gives a talk at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.

March – Cesar gives a talk at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.

February – Cesar participates as a panelist in ECUSA CRISPR Symposium.

January – Cesar gives a talk at the Synthetic Biology Center. MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA.