Wyss InstituteInfectious Disease – Wyss Institute

Multidisciplinary Wyss team receives 2026 Lush Prize Science Award

Jessica Leff — Mon, 18 May 2026 18:30:48 +0000

(BOSTON) — The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University is proud to announce that the Biosensing, Microfluidics, and Microsystems team, led by Wyss Senior Engineer Adama Sesay, Ph.D., together with the Female Reproductive Health team, has received the 2026 Lush Science Prize. The prize recognizes their work developing next-generation, sensor-integrated human Organ…

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Materializing safe, on-demand living therapeutics

Jessica Leff — Thu, 14 May 2026 17:55:55 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — Patient recovery from many debilitating conditions and diseases could be sped up significantly and be more effective if drugs and therapeutic molecules were delivered right to where they are needed in the body, over the entire regenerative process, and in doses finely tuned to therapeutic needs. An intriguing way to achieve this is the use of implantable…

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James Collins: Doing Good Science with an Underdog Spirit – The Pulse Podcast

Jessica Leff — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 17:11:57 +0000

James J. Collins is a founding Core Faculty member at the Wyss Institute and the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering & Science and Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT. Jim serves as a director at the MIT Jameel Clinic, a member of the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences & Technology Faculty, and a member of the Broad Institute. Jim is also an elected member of all three national academies.

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Building protection against infectious diseases with nanostructured vaccines

Mariel Schoen — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 12:56:44 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — The COVID-19 pandemic brought messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines to the forefront of global health care. After their clinical trial stages, the first COVID-19 mRNA vaccine was administered on 8 December 2020 and mathematical models suggest that mRNA vaccines prevented at least 14.4 million deaths from COVID-19 in the first year alone.

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Namrata Ramani on sculpting the future of delivering novel cancer therapeutics

Jessica Leff — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 18:32:49 +0000

The Humans of the Wyss (HOW) series features members of the Wyss community discussing their work, the influences that shape them as professionals, and their collaborations at the Wyss Institute and beyond. What do pottery and materials science have in common? Namrata Ramani used to think they were worlds apart. Then, as she honed her skills on the wheel and at the bench, she realized there are…

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A CRISPR fingerprint of pathogenic C. auris fungi

Jessica Leff — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 13:45:36 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — Infection with the pathogenic yeast fungus Candida auris (C. auris) can wreak havoc on the health of hospital patients and residents of nursing homes, especially those who are already weakened by other illnesses. The pathogen easily spreads and colonizes surfaces and objects where it can survive for weeks to months, and is often resistant to standard…

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Biomaterial vaccines to make implanted orthopedic devices safer

Jessica Leff — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 19:55:42 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — Patients with implanted medical devices like orthopedic joint replacements, pacemakers, and artificial heart valves run a small but significant risk that these devices get infected with bacterial pathogens. This starts them on a burdensome path requiring “redo” (revision) surgeries, prolonged antibiotic treatments, or in severe cases amputation.

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Human Organ Chip technology sets stage for pan-influenza A CRISPR RNA therapies

Jessica Leff — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 13:55:54 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) – The Influenza A virus (IAV) has been the cause of six major flu pandemics, responsible for 50 to 100 million deaths globally. In the U.S. alone, it is estimated that, despite seasonally updated vaccines, IAV infections still lead to 140,000 to 710,000 hospitalizations and 12,000 to 52,000 deaths annually. The development of antiviral treatments against IAV…

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Engineering Living Materials with Peter Q. Nguyen

Jessica Leff — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 16:13:25 +0000

In this episode of the CoreSpin Podcast Interview Series, host Misha Bagirov sits down with Wyss Senior Scientist Peter Q. Nguyen, Ph.D., to explore how synthetic biology can turn biofilms into useful materials, embed cell-free systems into wearables (like COVID-sensing masks), and program probiotics as future therapeutics. We also talked about the philosophy behind bioengineering…

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Can We Stop Stabbing Babies? – Salivary Diagnostics for Sepsis Screening in the Neonate

Jessica Leff — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 20:51:39 +0000

Every day, across the neonatal care unit, babies are being stabbed to collect their blood for sepsis tests. Adding to this dismal situation, diagnostics developed to assess sepsis in blood are very inaccurate, leading to the unnecessary prescription of antibiotics. Researchers at the Wyss Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have created a more accurate diagnostic platform using easily…

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