Application Area: Intestinal Disease

Technologies 5

• Engineered Live Biotherapeutic Product (eLBP) to Protect the Microbiome from Antibiotics
  eLBP is a safe and cost-effective therapeutic for patients treated with beta-lactam antibiotics that safeguards against the loss of health-essential microbes while preventing the development and spread of antibiotic resistance.
• Microrobotic Laser-Steering Medical Device for Minimally Invasive Surgery
  Endoscopy has proven extremely useful in many areas of medicine because it can be carried out with relatively few risks in a short time, and be used to diagnose and treat numerous diseases. In gastroenterology, endoscopies of the upper gastrointestinal tract (esophagus, stomach, first part of the small intestine; upper GI endoscopies) and lower gastrointestinal...
• Flexible Force Sensors for Microrobotics
  As robots have gotten smaller, softer, and more maneuverable, they’ve opened up myriad possibilities for interacting with objects on a tiny scale, including on and in the human body. However, human hands still have a major advantage over robots: the ability to feel. Researchers at the Wyss Institute are using the Pop-Up MEMS manufacturing technique...
• Flexible Robots for Endoscopic Procedures
  Endoscopes are a standard device in gastrointestinal medicine, used by surgeons to noninvasively see and take biopsies from tissues along the entire digestive tract. However, endoscopes themselves amount to hollow tubes with a camera and light attached, through which different instruments are threaded to the procedure site, and are rigid and not very maneuverable. Two...
• Human Organs-on-Chips
  Organ Chips are microfluidic devices lined with living human cells for drug development, disease modeling, and personalized medicine. Launched in 2014, Wyss startup Emulate, Inc., is leveraging the Wyss Institute’s Organ Chip technology to mimic human organs in vitro, enabling faster, better, and cheaper drug development and insights into human health.

News 31

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• Press Release
  
  Modeling a devastating childhood disease on a chip
  June 23, 2022
• Community
  
  Girija Goyal on Increasing the Efficacy of Clinical Trials
  March 4, 2022
• Press Release
  
  Of mice and men and leveraging their different tolerance to pathogens
  March 15, 2021

Multimedia 9

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  Video/Animation
  Mucus Layer In Vitro on Human Colon Chip
  Using Human Organ Chips, researchers at the Wyss Institute were able to generate the mucus layer of the colon in vitro, which has never been done before. In the colon, the mucus layer protects intestinal epithelial cells against inflammatory stimuli such as pathogens, damaged cells, or irritants. The ability to support mucus-producing cells is one...

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  Video/Animation
  A Laser Steering Device for Robot-Assisted Surgery
  Responding to an unmet need for a robotic surgical device that is flexible enough to access hard to reach areas of the G.I. tract while causing minimal peripheral tissue damage, Researchers at the Wyss Institute and Harvard SEAS have developed a laser steering device that has the potential to improve surgical outcomes for patients. Credit:...

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  Video/Animation
  Interrogator: Human Organ-on-Chips
  This video describes the “Interrogator” instrument that can be programmed to culture up to 10 different Organ Chips and sequentially transfer fluids between their vascular channels to mimic normal human blood flow between the different organs of our body. Its integrated microscope enables the continuous monitoring of the tissues’ integrities in the individual organ chips...

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  Video/Animation
  Engineered Cross-feeding in Bacterial Consortia
  Through engineered amino acid cross-feeding, researchers at the Wyss Institute and Harvard Medical School modified multiple bacterial strains to reverse antagonistic interactions and develop symbiotic relationships, resulting in a more balanced consortium and paving the way for future bacteria-based therapeutics. Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University

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  Video/Animation
  Self-regenerating bacterial hydrogels as intestinal wound patches
  This animation explains how self-regenerating bacterial hydrogels could be used as adhesive patches to help intestinal wounds heal. Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University.

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  Video/Animation
  Distributed Cell Division Counter
  Genetically engineered E. coli containing a fluorescing red protein enabled a Wyss Institute and Harvard Medical School team to analyze the population fluctuations of gut microbes by comparing proportion of “marked” to “unmarked” cells. Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University