Wyss InstituteImmune Engineering – Wyss Institute

Recapitulating intramuscular vaccination with mRNA vaccines in patient-specific Lymphoid Organ Chips

Mariel Schoen — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 13:55:40 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — The protective abilities of the Moderna and BioNTech mRNA vaccines developed against COVID-19 saved millions of lives during the pandemic and put this platform technology in the spotlight of vaccine research. By now, mRNA vaccines for other infectious diseases, such as influenza, RSV, and HIV are being tested in clinical trials and highly anticipated.

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TIB: Tolerance Inducing Biomaterials for Regulatory T Cells

Jessica Leff — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 17:38:18 +0000

Tissue regeneration following injuries and degenerative processes benefits greatly from the activity of regulatory T cells (Tregs) that help balance the immune system, which senses, regulates, and helps restore tissue environments following injury and in disease. In fact, immune therapies using Tregs have shown first promise in treating a wider variety of diseases. However…

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The Wyss Institute’s 2026-2027 Validation Projects

Jessica Leff — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 14:00:41 +0000

Each year, the Wyss Institute’s Validation Project program identifies technologies that are ready to move beyond the discovery and into the validation phase. Through dedicated funding, technical resources, business development support, market research, and engagement with clinicians, investors, industry experts, and key opinion leaders, the program helps research teams de-risk high-impact…

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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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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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20-ish Questions with David J. Mooney

Jessica Leff — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 13:41:58 +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 David J. Mooney, a Founding Core Faculty member and Lead of the Immuno-Materials platform at the Wyss Institute. He is also the Robert P. Pinkas Family Professor of Bioengineering at the Harvard John A.

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First-in-human clinical trial of personalized, biomaterial-based cancer vaccine demonstrates feasibility, safety, and immune activation

Jessica Leff — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 17:11:46 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — The first-in-human phase I clinical trial assessing the feasibility and safety of WDVAX, an immunostimulatory biomaterial-based cancer vaccine, in a cohort of 21 patients with stage 4 metastatic melanoma, was concluded with positive outcomes that encourage future vaccine developments and trials to test them in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitor…

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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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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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Charles Park named 2025 STAT Wunderkind

Seth Kroll — Fri, 17 Oct 2025 18:57:05 +0000

By Seth Kroll (BOSTON) — The Wyss Institute is proud to announce that Charles Park, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher in the Wyss’ Immuno-Materials Platform with Wyss Core Faculty member Samir Mitagotri, Ph.D., has been named a 2025 STAT Wunderkind by STAT News. The STAT Wunderkinds are annual awards that honor early-career scientists whose creativity and perseverance are helping to reshape…

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