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wFDCF Face Masks: A Wearable COVID-19 Diagnostic
The Problem The COVID-19 pandemic has made it starkly clear that the world lacks rapid, accurate diagnostic tests for pathogens. When patients arrive in a medical facility for treatment, the triage process is hindered by diagnostic tests that are inaccurate or take a long time to produce results. In addition, patients who are asymptomatic and... -
Broad-Spectrum RNA Therapeutic for COVID-19 and Influenza
The COVID-19 pandemic has killed more than two million people worldwide and death tolls continue to mount due to the lack of an effective prevention, cure, or widespread vaccine for the disease. Influenza viruses have been even more deadly in the past, and still cause hundreds of thousands of deaths every year. Seasonal flu vaccines... -
Cellular “Backpacks” to Slow Tumor Growth
Macrophages are the body’s multipurpose defense agents, patrolling for pathogens and engulfing cellular debris, foreign substances, microbes, and even cancer cells. But cancerous tumors have evolved an insidious defense mechanism: they can switch arriving macrophages from an anti-cancer state to a pro-cancer state, in which they help promote the tumor’s growth. As a result, attempts... -
Using Systems Biology to Find and Test New Drugs Faster
The pharmaceutical industry is infamous for big numbers: it takes 10-15 years and can cost over $2 billion to bring a new drug from the lab to the market. Up to 6 of those years and $1 billion are spent in laborious preclinical trials to identify and validate new potential drug compounds, and much of... -
eRapid: Multiplexed Electrochemical Sensors for Fast, Accurate, Portable Diagnostics
Handheld electrochemical sensors have revolutionized at-home medical testing for diabetics, but they have not yet been successfully applied to diagnosing other conditions. These sensors are based on the activity of an enzyme, and there are only a limited number of enzymes that can be used to detect biomarkers of human disease. An alternative, much more... -
FcMBL: Broad-Spectrum Pathogen Capture for Infectious Diseases
Microbial infection is the cause of life-threatening cases of sepsis, meningitis and multiple other diseases that are major causes of death world-wide. Equally prevalent are pathogenic contaminants in our environment, food, and manufacturing processes. In each case, the presence of dangerous microbes must be confirmed, and when they are found, they need to be removed,... -
Injectable Alginate Hydrogels for Medical Applications
One of the biggest challenges in medicine is getting a drug to the right part of the body at the right time. Even when the target site in the body is known, like a pain-causing injury or a cancerous tumor, most drugs are given as oral pills or intravenous infusions, which limits their effectiveness. In... -
DNA Data Storage
The genetic material DNA has garnered considerable interest as a medium for digital information storage because its density and durability are superior to those of existing silicon-based storage media. For example, DNA is at least 1000-fold more dense than the most compact solid-state hard drive and at least 300-fold more durable than the most stable... -
INSPECTR™: Direct-to-Consumer Molecular Diagnostic
INSPECTR™ is a molecular diagnostic platform that combines freeze-dried synthetic gene networks with cell-free expression systems to create novel biosensors that detect and report the presence of a target DNA or RNA molecule without the need for power or lab equipment. This technology was licensed by Wyss startup Sherlock Biosciences in 2019. -
AquaPulse: Portable Off-the-Grid Water Purification
Globally, more than 2 billion people are forced to use a drinking water source that is contaminated with bacteria, parasites, and other pathogens, and an estimated 502,000 people die each year from diarrhea as a result of unsafe water. While a majority of the world has access to improved water sources, many are often contaminated;... -
CogniXense: Target-Agnostic Drug Repurposing in Record Time
The problem There are more than 7,000 known rare genetic diseases that collectively afflict more patients in the United States than diabetes, but only 5% of these diseases have any effective treatment. A major driver of this lack of therapies is that about 75% of rare genetic diseases cause cognitive and behavioral impairment, which are... -
abbieSense: Anaphylaxis Diagnostic
The molecule histamine plays a primary role in the anaphylaxis reaction, which is a major cause of illness and death in people with severe allergies. Histamine is a very small molecule composed of only seventeen atoms, making it a challenging target to detect. To date, no diagnostic test exists that can measure histamine levels accurately... -
RAPID: Testing for Food Contaminants
Contamination of food by microorganisms such as certain bacteria, viruses and fungi is a constant concern, with even miniscule amounts of certain species posing a risk for foods to become unsafe and spoiled during storage. Current safety and quality tests are often not sensitive enough to detect rare species, and because they first require the... -
Microfluidic Drug Encapsulation
Because of their large molecular sizes and properties, biologic drugs, be it in the form of monoclonal antibodies that target disease-associated molecules or active proteins and enzymes that may correct deficiencies in the human body, have proven difficult to deploy in many cases. Their therapeutic effects on target cells and tissues often require high and... -
Project Abbie
Over 15 million Americans are at risk of anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction triggered by exposure to certain foods, materials, medications, and insect bites. Every three minutes, a food reaction sends someone to the emergency room. In most individuals, anaphylactic shock can be prevented by administering the counteracting drug epinephrine, as soon as an attack... -
Bioplastics
Humans have produced roughly 8,300 million metric tons of plastic since the 1950s, the vast majority of which has been thrown out as waste. Only about 9% of that plastic waste has been recycled and 12% has been incinerated, leaving 79% of it to accumulate on our land and oceans, harming the environment, the food... -
NanoRx: Mechanically-Activated Drug Targeting
The Wyss team has developed a novel drug targeting nanotechnology that is activated locally by mechanical forces, either endogenous high shear stresses in blood created by vascular occlusion or mechanical energy applied locally using low-energy ultrasound radiation. Today, vascular blockage is the leading cause of death and disability in United States and Europe. Current therapies... -
Microfluidic Hemostasis Monitor
The body’s ability to stop bleeding, also known as hemostasis, is critical for survival. For patients with blood clotting disorders, medical conditions requiring the use of anticoagulation or antiplatelet drugs, or who require treatment with extracorporeal devices that circulate their blood outside of the body, it is essential that care providers can rapidly monitor their... -
TLP: A Non-Stick Coating for Medical Devices
Every device implanted in the body or in contact with flowing blood faces two critical challenges that can threaten the life of the patient it is meant to help: blood clotting and bacterial infection. To confront this challenge, Wyss Institute researchers created a super-repellent, Thin Layer Perfluorocarbon (TLP) coating specifically designed to prevent clot formation... -
Human Organs-on-Chips
Organ Chips are microfluidic devices lined with living human cells for drug development, disease modeling, and personalized medicine. Launched in 2014, Wyss startup Emulate, Inc., is leveraging the Wyss Institute’s Organ Chip technology to mimic human organs in vitro, enabling faster, better, and cheaper drug development and insights into human health.