Wyss InstituteTissue Engineering – Wyss Institute

Decoding inflammatory bowel disease – on a chip

Jessica Leff — Thu, 21 May 2026 09:30:43 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which comprises the inflammatory conditions Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, affects about 1.6 million Americans, many of whom cannot be effectively treated. This is mostly due to a lack of understanding of what exactly causes the increased inflammation, fibrosis, and compromised intestinal barrier that underlie this…

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Multidisciplinary Wyss team receives 2026 Lush Prize Science Award

Jessica Leff — Mon, 18 May 2026 18:30:48 +0000

(BOSTON) — The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University is proud to announce that the Biosensing, Microfluidics, and Microsystems team, led by Wyss Senior Engineer Adama Sesay, Ph.D., together with the Female Reproductive Health team, has received the 2026 Lush Science Prize. The prize recognizes their work developing next-generation, sensor-integrated human Organ…

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Growing liver tissue on demand directly in the body

Jessica Leff — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 17:55:10 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — In patients developing end-stage liver disease, the damage has become too severe for the liver’s normally extraordinary regenerative capacity to repair or compensate for it. Once this “point of no return” has been reached, the only option is an organ transplant. However, getting a liver transplant is extremely difficult due to high demand and limited supply…

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Wyss Institute technologies enable breakthrough in astronaut health research aboard NASA’s Artemis II mission

Jessica Leff — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 14:55:20 +0000

By Alexandra Jirstrand (BOSTON) – Launched on April 1, 2026, Artemis II is a historic, approximately 10-day lunar flyby mission that is sending four astronauts farther into space than any humans have traveled since the Apollo era, marking a critical step toward sustained lunar exploration and future missions to Mars. The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard…

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20-ish Questions with Christopher Chen

Jessica Leff — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 14:00:53 +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 Christopher Chen, M.D., Ph.D., a Core Faculty member at the Wyss Institute. He is also the William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor, Biomedical Engineering & Director, Biological Design Center at Boston University.

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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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Wyss Institute Core Faculty member Christopher S. Chen elected to the National Academy of Medicine

Jessica Leff — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 13:28:06 +0000

By Alexandra Jirstrand (BOSTON) — Christopher S. Chen, M.D., Ph.D., Core Faculty member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, and the William F. Warren Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Boston University, has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine.

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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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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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