Highlights from the end of a decade
This was a big year for the Wyss Institute. It was our 10th anniversary, filled with scientific breakthroughs and translational successes, by a community bound together by creativity and a shared vision for bringing solutions with positive near-term impact to the world.
Translation Successes
Since the Wyss’s founding a decade ago, we have lived by the ethos that “breakthrough discoveries cannot change the world if they do not leave the lab.” As part of our mission to have near-term impact on the world, we translate our disruptive technologies into commercial products through the formation of new startups and licensing agreements.
This past year we have seen our most startup and licensing activity to date. We launched five startups though Harvard’s Office of Technology Development and executed four additional licensing agreements. Some of these include Sherlock Biosciences, which is developing a synthetic biology-based diagnostic platform to enable low-cost, highly sensitive detection of nucleic acids for use in a wide range of settings; BOA Biomedical, which is developing a device to rapidly diagnose and treat infectious diseases, focusing specifically on sepsis and antibiotic-resistant infections; and FitBiomics, a startup that is developing probiotics that have the potential to enhance athletic performance.
Additionally, our 2017 spinout, Root Robotics, which offers an educational robot to teach students how to code, was acquired this year by iRobot. Also, ReWalk Robotics received FDA clearance this year for a soft exosuit for stroke rehabilitation that was originally developed and de-risked at the Wyss Institute.
Our Most Read News Stories
Over the course of the year, we published more than 50 news stories about some of the incredible discoveries and advances published by our research teams. Wyss community members authored over 160 papers in peer reviewed journals, including four in Science and six in Nature. Our most popular stories include the following:
A swifter way towards 3D-printed organs
Sacrificial ink-writing technique allows 3D printing of large, vascularized human organ building blocks
September 6 | Science Advances
Suit up with a robot to walk AND run more easily
A versatile, portable exosuit that assists both walking and running highlights the potential for lightweight and non-restrictive wearable robots outside the lab
August 15 | Science
Discovery of performance-enhancing bacteria in the human microbiome
A single microbe accumulating in the microbiome of elite athletes can enhance exercise performance in mice, paving the way to highly-validated performance-enhancing probiotics
June 24 | Nature Medicine
Top News Coverage
News from the Wyss caught the eye of several major media outlets throughout the year. Improvements in the Wyss’s tough gel technology were covered by WBUR, additional innovation to our “hip exosuit” that assists with both walking and running was highlighted by CNBC, and NBC News featured a story on the Wyss’s new 3D-bioprinting technique called SWIFT (Sacrificial Writing into Functional Tissue) that uses living cells to “print” functional heart tissues. And, our hometown paper, The Boston Globe reported on a variety of Wyss work this year, including a study on using gene therapy to delay aging and a new soft gripper that can be used to safely study jellyfish without damage. Beyond covering published scientific work, The Smithsonian Magazine highlighted the Wyss Institutes Selects exhibit at Cooper Hewitt in New York City, showcasing the intersection between science and design.
Engaging Social Media Posts
By and large, we’ve increased our social media presence in 2019. Members of our Wyss community, along with fellow researchers, biotech and healthcare professionals, and those with curious minds, showed great interest in the Wyss’s activities.
In March on Facebook, we celebrated International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month with a photo series highlighting how women at the Wyss are making their mark. This year we also revamped our Humans of the Wyss series, through which we feature members of the Wyss community discussing their work, the influences that shape them as scientists, and their collaborations at the Wyss Institute and beyond. Senior Functional Apparel Designer Dorothy Orzel’s story intrigued many, with her unique background in the clothing industry and as a teacher at an apparel program. And in April, people showed support for the Wyss’s AbbieSense technology during #WorldAllergyWeek.
On Twitter, there was excitement around the news that 11 members of the Wyss community were among the most cited researchers of 2019 – including 10 faculty members and one staff member. Earlier in the year, Wyss researchers attended Amazon reMARS and famous faces such as Jeff Bezos and Shaquille O’Neal took turns playing with the RoboBee. While these special honors resulted in a lot of fanfare, our audience also engaged with our research developments, such as a publication in mSystems about an effective, non-invasive method to identify new bacterial biosensors that can recognize and report various disease triggers in the gut in a timely fashion.
From a tiny risky startup, to an engine for disruptive innovation powered by Biologically Inspired Engineering with people at its heart…
The research and activities at the Wyss throughout 2019 produced many stunning images, giving us a lot to share on Instagram this year. Photos from the new Multimaterial Multinozzle 3D Printer piqued the interest of many. This year, the Wyss celebrated our 10th anniversary, and in January we honored the occasion with a #WyssAt10 campaign, highlighting different areas of growth and accomplishment across the Institute. To introduce the campaign, we shared a collection of photos with the text, “From a tiny risky startup, to an engine for disruptive innovation powered by Biologically Inspired Engineering with people at its heart – Happy 10th Anniversary Wyss Institute.” For Earth Day, we created a visual representation of how our technologies are inspired by Nature, showing our appreciation for the planet and what it offers.
Community Highlights
Our year in review would not be complete if we did not highlight our community. Scroll through the photos to find out more about what we’ve been doing.
1/14 Angelika Fretzen spoke about technology translation at the Wyss Retreat. Earlier this year, she joined the Wyss as our Technology Translation Director. 
2/14 The Wyss Institute community gathered to thank and honor Hansjörg Wyss for a celebration of his generosity to the University, especially his unprecedented third gift to the Institute in 2019. 
3/14 Sangeeta Bhatia, Nur Mustafaoglu, Lindsay Brownell, and Jenny Tam attended the MASS AWIS Open House where Bhatia was a speaker. She is also a National AWIS Councilor. 
4/14 The Synthetic Biology platform had a rock climbing outing. 
5/14 One of our Making the News events taught Wyss researchers how to elevate their elevator pitches, and gave them an opportunity to practice their pitches in a real elevator to surprise guests, Don Ingber and Ayis Antoniou. Making the News is a series of lectures, workshops, and discussions hosted by the Communications Team that help Wyss members gain valuable communication skills. 
6/14 Wyss community members celebrated Pi Day and the summer with pop-up events in Longwood and in Cambridge. 
7/14 A record number of Wyss employees were nominated as Harvard Heroes. The nominees are pictured above: Greg Ryan, Clinton Mann, Troy Leonard, Patrick Dech, Deirdre Hume, Margaret Ivins, and Fernando Bermudez. Our Harvard Hero was Margaret Ivins! 
8/14 Wyss community members enjoyed socializing across disciplines at multiple Meet and Greets. 
9/14 Deborah Dillon spoke about unmet clinical diagnostics needs in breast cancer as part of the Diagnostics Grand Rounds lecture series. Diagnostics Grand Rounds is a monthly lecture series hosted by David Walt that brings clinicians and Wyss technology developers together to discuss unmet clinical needs and the technical developments needed to drive clinical solutions from bench to bedside. 
10/14 Members of Conor Walsh's lab participated in the Bionic 5K which celebrates the power of technology to enable all people to run together and encourages the participation of adaptive runners. 
11/14 The Wyss Symposium was on Next Generation Diagnostics and drew a record number of attendees. 
12/14 This year's retreat featured an "ethicist's corner" with our in-house ethicist Jeantine Lunshof. 
13/14 Chrissy Glover, Diana Wagner, Diogo Schwerz de Lucena, and Kristin Nuckols attended the American Conference of Rehabilitative Medicine in Chicago. 
14/14 A look back at some of the fun ways the Wyss was represented in 2019.