Wyss InstituteTargeted Drug Delivery – Wyss Institute

Breaking barriers in brain health

Mariel Schoen — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 22:28:15 +0000

For decades, some of the most urgent challenges in brain health have resisted progress across both academia and the pharmaceutical industry. At the Wyss Institute, we are tackling them head-on. A central focus is overcoming one of the field’s biggest obstacles: delivering drugs effectively to the brain and central nervous system. Today, this process remains inefficient…

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Nucleic Acid Delivery Consortium

Mariel Schoen — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 15:13:09 +0000

Nucleic acid therapies are emerging as a revolutionary class of medicines. Using engineered DNA or RNA molecules, they treat diseases at their genetic source, thus offering potential cures for a large variety of disorders, ranging from genetic disorders to cancers and infectious diseases. Different technologies, including mRNA, short interfering RNAs (siRNA), antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs)…

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Beating cancer cells at their own game by stepping on their cGAS

Jessica Leff — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 17:30:44 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — Cancer cells develop various strategies to paralyze immune cells to evade their attack in the complex tumor microenvironment (TME). Using one such strategy, they cripple their own production of a small signaling molecule known as cGAMP, which, if released into the TME, can be taken up by immune cells that then build up a first line of defense against cancer…

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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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Sanjid Shahriar on Using Computational Biology to Cross the Blood-Brain Barrier

Jessica Leff — Tue, 01 Jul 2025 14:00:36 +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. In 2018, Sanjid Shahriar started developing two new skills: powerlifting and computational biology. Each was started with an initial goal of complementing things he already possessed…

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Wyss Institute at Harvard University announces appointment of Natalie Artzi to Associate Institute Director

Jessica Leff — Thu, 29 May 2025 13:55:14 +0000

By Alexandra Jirstrand (BOSTON) – The Wyss Institute at Harvard University, its Board of Directors, and Executive Leadership are pleased to announce that Natalie Artzi, Ph.D., has been appointed to a newly created position as Associate Institute Director of the Wyss Institute. In her new role, Artzi will work closely with the Wyss Founding Director Don Ingber, M.D., Ph.D.

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Feyisayo (Sayo) Eweje on Helping Gene Therapies ENTER The Right Cells

Jessica Leff — Thu, 29 May 2025 13:00:47 +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. Sayo Eweje loves finding solutions, whether he’s looking at a Rubik’s Cube or a technical challenge in the lab. When faced with the problem of how to impact patients at both a personal and…

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ENTERing a new era of drug delivery

Jessica Leff — Thu, 15 May 2025 13:25:50 +0000

By Lindsay Brownell (BOSTON) — Getting medicines into the cells they’re designed to treat is a perennial problem for the medicine and pharmaceutical industries, and patients often suffer from side effects and ineffective treatments as a result. Current drug delivery vehicles carry a host of risks and limits: lipid nanoparticles can cause immune reactions and accumulate in the liver…

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20-ish Questions with Samir Mitragotri

Jessica Leff — Thu, 08 May 2025 14:52:36 +0000

20-ish Questions shows a different side of Wyss Institute faculty, touching on aspects of their personal life, hobbies, interests, as well as their research. This round follows Samir Mitragotri, a Core Faculty member of the Wyss Institute as well as a Professor of Bioengineering and Biologically Inspired Engineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

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Wyss Institute team selected by DARPA-SHIELD program to develop first-of-its-kind biologically engineered broad-spectrum antimicrobial therapeutic

Jessica Leff — Mon, 16 Sep 2024 13:25:50 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University received a contract for up to $12M from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)’s new SHIELD program. The SHIELD (Synthetic Hemo-technologies to Locate and Disinfect) program aims to develop a prophylactic treatment that can be broadly administered to…

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