Wyss InstituteStem Cell Engineering – Wyss Institute

Toward engineering a human kidney collecting duct system

Jessica Leff — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 14:50:56 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — The human kidney filters about a cup of blood every minute, removing waste, excess fluid, and toxins from it, while also regulating blood pressure, balancing important electrolytes, activating Vitamin D, and helping the body produce red blood cells. This broad range of functions is achieved in part via the kidney’s complex organization. In its outer region…

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Wyss Institute-led collaboration awarded by ARPA-H PRINT program to engineer off-the-shelf, universal, transplant-ready graft for liver failure

Jessica Leff — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 14:55:47 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — The majority of human illnesses are caused by damage to a single organ, like the liver, whose failure accounts for 2M deaths worldwide every year. Orthotopic transplants are the only curative therapy available, but the severe shortage of donor organs, which are reserved for the most severe cases, leaves millions of patients without an accessible solution.

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Recapitulating egg and sperm development in the dish

Jessica Leff — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 17:55:46 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — More than one-sixth of adults around the world experience infertility in their lifetime. There is a high unmet need not only for increased access to affordable, high-quality fertility care for those in need but, importantly, also for new biomedical solutions that can address the root causes of infertility. Some of the earliest causes of infertility go back to…

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Precision oncology Organ Chip platform accurately and actionably predicts chemotherapy responses of patients suffering from esophageal adenocarcinoma

Jessica Leff — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 13:20:57 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — Esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC), one of two major forms of esophageal cancer, is the sixth most deadly cancer worldwide for which no effective targeted therapy exists. Patients need to rely on chemotherapy as a standard-of-care, which is started ahead of surgical interventions as a so-called “neoadjuvant chemotherapy” (NACT) in the hope to shrink or control tumors.

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Toward recreating the brain’s immune system in a dish

Jessica Leff — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 13:55:59 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — Microglia are a specialized type of immune cells that accounts for about 10% of all cells within the brain and spinal cord. They function by eliminating infectious microbes, dead cells, and aggregated proteins, as well as soluble antigens that may endanger the brain and, during development, also help shape neural circuits enabling specific brain functions.

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GC Therapeutics: Changing the Future of Cell Therapies

Jessica Leff — Thu, 01 May 2025 13:00:40 +0000

Cell therapy is a promising, rapidly advancing form of therapy that is transforming the treatment and prevention of diseases with significant therapeutic need. In cell therapies, specific therapeutic cell types are transferred into patients to directly repair or regenerate damaged tissue and/or cells. To create cell therapy products, stem cells are differentiated outside the body into desired…

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A model of Collaborative Ethics to guide translational research from fundamental discoveries to real-world applications

Jessica Leff — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 14:55:06 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — In sciences, disruptive research that is breaking new ground often raises new and not-yet-explored ethical questions. Although new scientific breakthroughs can have the power to change how we understand and live in the world, the ethical implications of technologies that will emerge based on these new insights can affect an emerging field’s public acceptance and…

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Wyss Institute’s CircaVent team awarded grant from BD2 to advance research into bipolar disorder and development of more effective drugs

Jessica Leff — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 14:56:09 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner (Boston) — The Wyss Institute’s CircaVent project will be supported by Breakthrough Discoveries for thriving with Bipolar Disorder (BD2), which aims to advance scientific understanding of the causes underlying bipolar disorder (BD). The CircaVent project examines the molecular mechanisms of common bipolar interventions and the pathophysiology of bipolar disorder to…

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Adding immunity to human kidney-on-a-chip advances cancer drug testing

Seth Kroll — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 14:57:37 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner (Boston) — A growing repertoire of cell and molecule-based immunotherapies is offering patients with indomitable cancers new hope by mobilizing their immune systems against tumor cells. An emerging class of such immunotherapeutics, known as T cell bispecific antibodies (TCBs), are of growing importance with several TCBs that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)…

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Aric Lu on Breaking Biology by Bioprinting Complex Tissue

Jessica Leff — Thu, 18 May 2023 15:06:04 +0000

The Humans of the Wyss (HOW) series features members of the Wyss community discussing their work, the influences that shape them as scientists, and their collaborations at the Wyss Institute and beyond. Like each cell in the body, each paddler in a dragon boat plays a specific role. In both cases, each has different characteristics and strengths, but all must work together in tandem for the…

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