Dr. Melik Demirel co-organized the 1st Annual SYSTEMS BIOLOGY WORKSHOP together with Dr. Randen Patterson (Biology). The scope of this workshop was to highlight the strength of multidisciplinary approaches to Biology. Specifically the symposium demonstrated how the integration of mathematical-modeling, molecular-interaction networks, evolution, comparative genomics, bioinformatics, knowledge bases, and the physics of cellular structures can be applied to empirical experimental biology.

Scientists in the Penn State Microwave Processing and Engineering Center have developed processes that offer huge energy savings in the production of powdered metal products, a $5 billion-plus industry in the United States. Microwave sintering of powder metals can reduce energy usage by 80 percent compared to conventional sintering processes that use gas or electricity, according to Japan’s National Institute for Fusion Science.

Professor Dinesh Agrawal, director of the Penn State Microwave Processing and Engineering Center, Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics and Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, has been invited to join the World Academy of Ceramics as a Professional Member (Academician) of the Class "Science." Professional Members of the Academy are individuals who have made an international noteworthy contribution to the advancement of ceramics.

Source: Materials Research Institute Newsletter

Two articles in Science Direct’s Top 25 Hottest Articles in the materials category for the first quarter of 2006 are authored by members of the Penn State Microwave Center in the Materials Research Institute. "Anisothermal reaction synthesis of garnets, ferrites, and spinels in microwave field," an article published in Materials Research Bulletin in 2001, made the ranking at #13. Authors on the paper were R.D. Peelamedu, R. Roy, and D. Agrawal. At #14 is "Effect of powder reactivity on microwave sintering of alumina," by Y.Fang, J. Cheng, and D. Agrawal, from Materials Letters, January 2004.


Source: Penn State's Materials Research Institute Newsletter