Media Coverage

Time
Cancer patients may have a new tool in fighting their disease: programmable nanorobots made out of DNA. The robots, created by researchers at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, work like the body’s natural white blood cells. The nanorobots are constructed by folding strands of DNA together...

Discovery
Scientists at Harvard's Wyss Institute have genetically engineered an organism to sense magnetic fields, showing that it's possible to make organisms react to magnetism even when they normally don't. The work points to a lot of applications in medicine, industry and research. For example, cells sensitive to magnetic fields tend to align themselves in a single direction like tiny compass needles...

Harvard Focus
Magnetic fields span the globe, but few organisms can sense them. In fact, how these few magnetically-aware organisms, such as butterflies and bees, gain their magnetism remains one of biology’s unsolved mysteries. Now, using the tools of synthetic biology, researchers from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and Harvard Medical School have induced magnetism to a non-magnetic organism: yeast...

GizMag
Created by the same man who came up with Le Whif (inhalable chocolate) and Aeroshot (aerosol caffeine boost), portable containers for food and drinks could soon be available in a novel edible form. The project emerged out of an idea put forth by Dr. David Edwards from Harvard University's Wyss Institute. The plastic-free products would be a useful alternative to take-away containers, lunch boxes, and drink bottles, while reducing the environmental concerns often associated with plastic production and recycling...

Discovery News
Researchers have figured out how to make robotic bees using origami techniques that fold carbon and other materials together like a pop-up children's book. This new method will make it faster and cheaper to mass produce these tiny flying robots, perhaps allowing swarms of them to one day pollinate crops, investigate chemical spills or search for missing hikers...

NPR
Do bees, swarms of bees, make you nervous? Maybe not. Maybe they remind you of honey, flowers and warm summer days. You stay out of their way and they stay out of yours. What if, however, the bees weren't bees at all but hundreds (or thousands) of autonomous microbots, facsimiles of the real thing, buzzing around in the real world?...

WGBH
Researchers at Harvard have come up with a novel manufacturing process for building robotic bees, finding inspiration from the worlds of pop-up books and origami. They hope that within two years their bees will be flying on their own, perhaps in swarms...

Businessweek
Scientists have created a robot made entirely from DNA that can be instructed to find diseased cells in the body and deliver a payload to kill or reprogram them, according to a study from Harvard University. The robot was constructed by folding DNA strands into a shape that looks roughly like a clamshell...

CFO World
A study by Harvard Medical School’s Wyss Institute researchers could revolutionize the fight against deadly diseases. Robotics technology is evolving fast, and so are the potential uses of robots. The Harvard researchers are working on leveraging microscopic robots (nanorobots), made out of DNA, to help fight against deadly diseases such as cancer...

Popular Science
Dr. David Edwards, of Harvard University's Wyss Institute, is the man behind the controversial (as in, the FDA plans to investigate its safety) breathable caffeine and other vitamins, has been working on a new futuristic food item: edible containers. They've already created tomato containers with gazpacho inside, among other treats...

Daily Mail
Future bottles could be eaten after scientists developed an edible material that can taste like the drink inside. The product, a membrane created using a biodegradable plastic combined with food particles, could either be peeled off or potentially eaten whole...

International Business Times
Scientists have developed nano-robots that can deliver deadly payloads to unhealthy cells. Researchers at Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University developed these nanoscale robots that are made from DNA in the hopes that they will one day be used to fight different diseases and even cause cancer cells to self-destruct...

Mass Device
Recent research on Type 1 diabetes has begun focusing on prevention: Studies indicate that children start developing diabetes-related autoantibodies sometimes years before they develop clinical diabetes requiring insulin shots. The autoantibodies are an indicator of insulitis – a precursor condition in which the insulin-producing islets in the pancreas become inflamed and infiltrated with white blood cells...

Organic Authority
As virtually every nation around the world struggles to combat waste management—particularly edible food waste—a Harvard Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering professor may have tackled both problems at once. Called WikiCells, Professor David A. Edwards and his team have developed an artificial—and edible—substance that has the potential to be used as a functional food packaging in lieu of plastic or other materials that often end up in landfills...

Mashable
Packages constructed of DNA dubbed “DNA origami” might one day be used to create nanorobots capable of finding and destroying cancer cells in the human body. The nanorobots mimic a cell’s receptor system in order to communicate with cells. The cells can carry materials — a “payload” — to cancer cells, and when the nanorobot detects the cells it’s hunting for, it will spring into action...

GizMag
We've seen various experimental approaches that aim to increase the efficacy of chemotherapy while also reducing its damaging side effects by specifically targeting cancer cells. The latest encouraging development comes from Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering...

The Age
Scientists have created a robot made from DNA that can be instructed to find diseased cells in the body and deliver a payload to kill or reprogram them, according to a study from Harvard University...

TopNews Arab Emirates
As per recent reports, it has come to light that researchers have successfully crafted a robot which has been developed from DNA which can easily be instructed for finding diseased cells in the human body and can therefore effectively deliver a load for slaughtering or reprogramming them accordingly...

Forbes
Scientists at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard have developed nanoscale robots, comprised of DNA, which might one day be used to deliver instructions directly to the cells of a patient’s body. This technique could be used to fight different diseases and could, for example, cause cancer cells to kill themselves...

Innovation News Daily
As technology evolves, robots are beginning to get smaller and smaller. But now, researchers from Harvard have given microscopic robots a twist — they’re making them out of DNA. Using a technique dubbed “DNA origami,” the researchers “fold” the DNA strands into shapes that can carry cancer-fighting drugs...

IT World
Counter-intuitively, a Harvard engineering lab specializing in research on ultra-small robots has adapted cutting-(paper's)edge technology from origami and children's pop-up books into a process designed to make it possible to mass-produce tiny flying robots at a cost that might make it practical to manufacture more than one...

PC Magazine
Ray Kurzweil, call your office—Harvard scientists have developed a cell-sniffing nanorobot that can deliver payloads of drug molecules to cancer-stricken areas of a person's body. The researchers said Friday in a peer-reviewed study that they used their nanobots to deliver antibodies to lymphoma, leukemia, and other types of cancer cells, succeeding in halting their growth...

MedGadget
Inspired by the white blood cells of the human immune system, researcher from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have developed a nanorobot made of DNA, which has the potential to target specific cells and trigger responses by delivering molecular instructions...

The Verge
Were you worried that all cancer-fighting robots looked as terrifying as this one? If so, a team from Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University is here to put your fears to rest. Using a technique that folds DNA into unique structures, researchers have created a barrel-like nanorobot that can bind to cancer cells and deliver messages telling them to self-destruct...

BBC
Scientists have developed and tested a "DNA robot" that delivers payloads such as drug molecules to specific cells. The container was made using a method called "DNA origami", in which long DNA chains are folded in a prescribed way. Then, so-called aptamers - which can recognise specific cell types - were used to lock the barrel-shaped robot...