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Technologies 7

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• 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...
• DNA Nanotechnology Tools – From Design to Applications
  DNA nanostructures with their potential for cell and tissue permeability, biocompatibility, and high programmability at the nanoscale level are promising candidates as new types of drug delivery vehicles, highly specific diagnostic devices, and tools to decipher how biomolecules dynamically change their shapes, and interact with each other and with candidate drugs. Wyss Institute researchers are...
• OMNIVAX: Broadly Deployable Infection Vaccine Platform
  Infectious diseases pose one of the greatest threats to public health, and vaccination campaigns with broad population coverage – arguably the most powerful strategy for preventing, controlling, and treating infectious diseases – have eradicated or significantly reduced the risk of contracting diseases such as smallpox, measles, polio, and tetanus. However, there is a constant need for...
• Bone Marrow-Like Scaffolds for Accelerating Immune Reconstitution
  Bone marrow transplants containing hematopoietic stem cells from an immune-compatible (“allogeneic”) donor can cure patients with otherwise fatal blood disorders including multiple myeloma and leukemias by reconstituting their entire immune systems after chemotherapy. However, following such a “hematopoietic stem cell transplantation” (HSCT), the restoration of T cell immunity – which depends on the production of...
• eRNA: Controlled Enzymatic RNA Oligonucleotide Synthesis
  Synthetic RNA oligonucleotides designed as specific successions of the four nucleobases A, U, G, and C that mimic naturally occurring RNA species are the key components of diverse RNA-based therapies. These include RNA therapeutics that can partially or completely turn off the expression of disease-causing genes (antisense and interfering RNAs), help replace or supplement dysfunctional...
• Cell-Free Biomolecule Manufacturing
  Wyss Institute researchers have developed a biomolecular manufacturing method that can quickly and easily produce a wide range of vaccines, antimicrobial peptides and antibody conjugates while doing so anywhere, even in places without access to electrical power or refrigeration. The breakthrough could provide a life-saving workaround for making modern interventions available in remote areas. Today...

News 22

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• Research Spotlights
  
  Harvard “Immuno-engineering to Improve Immunotherapy” (i3) Center at the Wyss Institute awards first grant to Dana-Farber cancer immunologist Eric Smith
  January 21, 2021
• Press Release
  
  A viable vaccine for tough tumors
  November 10, 2020
• Community
  
  The OMNIVAX team sets out to follow their dream
  October 22, 2020

Multimedia 6

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  Video/Animation
  OMNIVAX: Infection Vaccine Platform
  This video explains how OMNIVAX – an immuno-material-based vaccine technology can be used to rapidly create injectable vaccines against diverse viral and bacterial pathogens, and how the platform is used by the team to develop a vaccine against recurring urinary tract infections (UTIs) in their lead human application. Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University.

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  Video/Animation
  Beating Back the Coronavirus
  When the coronavirus pandemic forced Harvard University to ramp down almost all on-site operations, members of the Wyss Institute community refocused their teams, and formed new ones, in order to fight COVID-19 on its multiple fronts. These efforts include building new pieces of personal protective equipment that were delivered to frontline healthcare workers, developing new...

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  Audio/Podcast
  Disruptive: Cancer Vaccine and Immuno-Materials
  Immunotherapy – treatment that uses the body’s own immune system to help fight disease – has groundbreaking and life-saving implications. In an effort to make immunotherapy more effective, Wyss Institute researchers are developing new immuno-materials, which help modulate immune cells to treat or diagnose disease. In this episode of Disruptive, Dave Mooney, Wyss Core Faculty...

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  Video/Animation
  Wyss Focus: Immuno-Materials
  Wyss Core Faculty, Dave Mooney, explains our new Immuno-Materials Focus Area, which adds a new dimension to immunotherapy in that it harnesses materials to make treatments more efficient and effective. These material-based systems are capable of modulating immune cells and releasing them into the body where they can treat diseases.

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  Audio/Podcast
  Disruptive: Cancer Vaccine & Hydrogel Drug Delivery
  In this episode of Disruptive, Wyss Founding Core Faculty Member Dave Mooney discusses programmable nanomaterials approaches to fighting disease. Mooney explains how a cancer vaccine, developed by his team and currently in a clinical trial at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, can train one’s own immune system to target specific cancer cells. He also describes the...

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  Video/Animation
  Introduction to Implantable Cancer Vaccine
  What if we could prevent and treat cancer with a simple vaccine? Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University