Helen Yoon

Second-year MBA students Irene Susantio and Brian Smith are $20,000 closer to achieving their dream of fighting cancer. On Wednesday, their team, named Solixia, secured the title of Grand Winner at the tenth annual Wharton Business Plan Competition. A radiopharmaceutical company, Solixia has created an agent for diagnosing breast cancer and a treatment for ovarian cancer.

Saving someone's life may start with something as simple as a cheek swab. Wharton freshman Andrew Brodsky is living proof. Diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 16, Brodsky received a bone marrow transplant that saved his life. His donor - a close to perfect genetic match - was a male living in New York who had his cheek swabbed at a bone marrow registry drive that his fraternity organized at Northwestern University.

Penn is helping Philadelphia's top officials to become better leaders. Two weeks ago, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter's senior administrators assembled at the Steinberg Conference Center on Thursday and Friday to participate in the University's executive education program, a two-day institute program to develop leadership and management skills.

With graduation in less than a month's time, seniors are looking to enter an economy that might be headed for a recession. But the future might not be so dark for graduates, Penn career counselors say. Despite economic troubles, Penn students will be largely unaffected.

Wharton may be facing stiffer competition from its European counterparts for quality MBA candidates. European business schools - offering a shorter and cheaper MBA program - are becoming an increasingly popular option for students seeking a higher business degree.

High-school senior Erica Yeon of Central High School of Philadelphia was thrilled with both her acceptance letter from Penn and the financial-aid package it offered. "Financial aid is something I definitely need to go to Penn," said Yeon, who plans on joining Penn's new class of 2012.

Thirty minutes prior to last Friday's runway show on campus, models, designers and directors were running around, finishing up hairstyles and checking clothes. But just past seven, once the DJ started the music and the audience - dressed up for the occasion - had been seated, the spotlight came on and the models strutted along the runway under white tents set up in Wynn Commons.

For thousands of Americans, the current credit crisis is a nightmare of potential home foreclosures and job layoffs. For Wall Street, it is a market tsunami of complex mortgage investment losses. But for Penn professors, the crisis is an extra opportunity to bring real-life financial examples to the classroom, where students are showing renewed interest in the current economic situation.

Wharton is joining forces with investment bank Goldman Sachs for a unique philanthropic mission. Goldman Sachs' global initiative, '10,000 Women,' will provide short-term business education programs over the next five years to provide approximately 10,000 women in developing countries with the skills to become successful entrepreneurs.

First-year MBA student Sara Tenenbein hates carrying her purse. "I used to clip things into my bra," she said. And according to research conducted by her Wharton Business Plan Competition team called SCM Inc., a lot of women agree that having to carry something is annoying - especially when taking part in physical activities like dancing at a club.