Wyss InstituteChemical Engineering – Wyss Institute

Nixe: Bioinspired Sustainable and Water-repellent Textile Coating

Jessica Leff — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 16:48:28 +0000

PFAs, per- and polyfluorinated chemical compounds, were first used with the invention of Teflon in 1938 and by now are found in the blood of 97% of Americans. They pose risks to human reproductive and immune health, and are strongly suspected to cause cancer, developmental defects, and other health problems. As “forever chemicals,” they are passed through entire ecosystems and along food chains.

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Broad-spectrum coronavirus drug developed through AI-enabled dynamic modeling

Jessica Leff — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 14:55:26 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — About 30% of all respiratory tract infections are caused by coronaviruses, leading to widespread illnesses and, in some cases, to epidemic and even pandemic outbreaks, as we experienced with the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the development of groundbreaking technology that enables the design of prophylactic vaccines, access to those vaccines is not equal across…

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Implantable biosensors get a major longevity boost

Jessica Leff — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 14:55:18 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — Wearable and implantable biosensors that can accurately detect biological molecules in a non- or minimally invasive manner have vast potential for monitoring patients’ physiology and response to therapies. For example, wearable glucose monitors that measure blood glucose levels and convert these measurements into readily readable and continuously recorded…

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Ropirio: Novel Treatments Targeting the Lymphatic System

Mariel Schoen — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 13:56:37 +0000

The human lymphatic system is vast and critical to our health, including the proper functioning of our immune system. Over the last decade, research into the lymph system has revealed its dysfunction in a wide variety of diseases, but development of drugs to directly target the lymph system has lagged, in part because there are few reliable preclinical models of lymph vessels on which to test drug…

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Ropirio launches from Wyss Institute to develop first-in-class lymphatic medicines

Mariel Schoen — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 13:55:12 +0000

By Lindsay Brownell (BOSTON) — The Wyss Institute at Harvard University announced today that Ropirio Therapeutics, Inc. (Ropirio) has secured a worldwide, exclusive license from Harvard’s Office of Technology Development (OTD) and Boston University (BU)’s Technology Development office for novel molecules that activate the lymphatic system – a first in the pharma industry. “There has been a…

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Starting a fluorescent biosensor revolution

Mariel Schoen — Thu, 05 Sep 2024 09:00:00 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — Biosensors – devices that use biological molecules to detect the presence of a target substance – have enormous potential for detecting disease biomarkers, molecules-in-action in diverse biological processes, or toxins and other harmful substances in the environment. One of the more common types, fluorescent biosensors, consists of a target-binding biomolecule…

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A better way to make RNA drugs

Jessica Leff — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 09:00:40 +0000

By Lindsay Brownell (BOSTON) — While the COVID-19 vaccines introduced many people to RNA-based medicines, oligonucleotides have already been on the market for years to treat diseases like Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and amyloidosis. RNA therapies offer many advantages over traditional small molecule drugs, including their ability to address almost any genetic component within cells and to guide…

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AminoX: Making Better Protein Drugs, Quicker and Cheaper

Jessica Leff — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 13:56:00 +0000

A synthetic biology and advanced chemistry platform that efficiently incorporates non-standard amino acids by hacking the ubiquitous protein synthesis process. Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University…

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AminoX: Making Better Protein Drugs, Quicker and Cheaper

Jessica Leff — Wed, 01 May 2024 15:40:43 +0000

Protein drugs often offer the most effective way to treat a variety of medical illnesses and conditions. However, many proteins in their naturally occurring forms make poor drugs – they can cause toxicities that force patients to discontinue treatment, and they often have such short half-lives that patients would need to receive a constant infusion of them to see a therapeutic effect. Recently…

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Catalytic Materials: Cheaper, Better Air Purification for a Healthier World

Mariel Schoen — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 20:22:04 +0000

Catalytic converters are the most widely used kind of air pollution control device, and are installed in many smokestacks and car tailpipes. However, standard catalytic converters are very expensive because the catalysts used in them are precious metals like platinum, meaning they are not always replaced as often as they should be, and are the target of theft in lower-income areas.

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