The Humans of the Wyss (HOW) series features members of the Wyss community discussing their work, the influences that shape them as professionals, and their collaborations at the Wyss Institute and beyond.
Jen Bays loves building things. At home, that might mean assembling LEGO bricks or IKEA furniture. At work, it means transforming an observation into a complete scientific story concluding with patient impact. Right now, as part of the THRIVE Validation Project, she’s studying vascular barriers and developing a therapeutic to repair damaged blood vessels to treat diseases like sepsis. Learn more about Jen and her work in this month’s Humans of the Wyss.
What are you working on?
I study how blood vessels maintain their barrier function and what happens when that barrier fails during diseases such as sepsis, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), and other inflammatory conditions. When this protective barrier breaks down, blood vessels become leaky, allowing fluid and inflammatory cells to flood into surrounding tissues. This can lead to swelling, organ damage, and, in severe cases, multi-organ failure. Despite the central role of vascular leakage in many diseases, there are currently no therapies that directly restore the vascular, or endothelial, barrier itself.
Our THRIVE Validation Project team is developing a first-in-class therapeutic designed to repair the vascular barrier by harnessing one of the signaling pathways used by cells in the body. We discovered a small barrier-restoring peptide and, using next-generation RNA delivery technologies, we achieve its sustained, targeted expression in the endothelium. By testing this in engineered human blood vessels-on-chips, advanced molecular biology, and animal models, we can understand the underlying biology while developing therapies with real translational potential.
What real-world problem does this solve?
What excites me most is that this approach doesn’t target just one disease. It addresses a common mechanism shared across many conditions. By restoring vascular integrity, our goal is to stop disease progression and give the body the opportunity to heal. Although we’re initially focused on sepsis, this technology could ultimately benefit patients with ARDS, stroke, retinopathy, and many other diseases characterized by vascular leakage.
What inspired you to get into this field?
I’ve always been fascinated by understanding how biology works at a mechanistic level. Early in my career, I loved discovering how individual proteins communicate to regulate cellular behavior. Over time, I became increasingly interested in translating those insights to tissue-level biology and developing therapies that could improve human health.
What continues to motivate you?
Seeing fundamental biology evolve into something with real clinical potential. It’s incredibly rewarding to watch a project grow from a scientific question into a technology that could one day make a meaningful difference for patients.
What excites you the most about your work?
Different viewpoints often lead to ideas and solutions that wouldn’t emerge in a single-discipline environment.
The most exciting part of my work is the interdisciplinary collaboration. Solving complex biological problems requires expertise from many different fields, and I get to work alongside engineers, molecular biologists, clinicians, chemists, and computational scientists who each bring a unique perspective. Those different viewpoints often lead to ideas and solutions that wouldn’t emerge in a single-discipline environment.
What are some of the challenges that you face?
Biology is incredibly complex. Diseases rarely involve just one pathway, so translating promising laboratory discoveries into therapies requires years of careful experimentation, optimization, and close collaboration. While challenging, that’s also what makes the work so rewarding.
What is unique about the Wyss? How has that impacted your work?
One of the most unique aspects of the Wyss is that translation isn’t an afterthought; it’s built into every stage of research. From the beginning of a project, we’re encouraged to think about clinical impact, manufacturability, commercialization, and how an invention could ultimately reach patients.
Instead of simply asking whether something is biologically interesting, I also ask whether it could become a viable therapeutic strategy and what experiments are needed to move it toward that goal.
That mindset has shaped how I approach science. Instead of simply asking whether something is biologically interesting, I also ask whether it could become a viable therapeutic strategy and what experiments are needed to move it toward that goal.
How do you collaborate with and/or receive support from teams across the Wyss Institute?
I work closely with scientists specializing in RNA therapeutics, drug delivery, and translational medicine. For example, the THRIVE project is a collaboration between my lab, led by Christopher Chen, and Natalie Artzi’s lab. Those collaborations allow us to develop expertise that no single laboratory possesses.
In the context of the Validation Project, we’re working with Gretchen Fougere and Vani Velamoor from the Business Development Team. They’re constantly pushing us to think about our end goal, which is developing a product that can help patients, and provide strategic guidance to help us get there. For example, we were initially targeting ARDS as our first indication but were struggling with the technical hurdle of developing preclinical models. Through our discussions with the BD team, we switched to sepsis. There’s a higher demand, as it impacts more people, and thus a greater unmet need. As a bonus, there are existing preclinical models recapitulating that disease.
How have your previous work and personal experiences shaped your approach to your work today?
Early in my career, I focused on understanding fundamental signaling mechanisms. Later, I began integrating those discoveries with engineered tissue models and microphysiological systems. I’ve also had the opportunity to mentor many students and lead multidisciplinary collaborations. Those experiences reinforced that the best science comes from curiosity, teamwork, and creating an environment where people are comfortable sharing ideas and challenging assumptions.
What do you like to do outside of work?
Outside the lab, I enjoy spending time with my family and exploring Boston with my preschooler. I also love being outdoors, traveling, and biking. I’m a bike commuter, but I also enjoy spinning. My favorite place I’ve ever traveled is Iceland. More locally, I love going to the beach.
1/2 Jen and her wife Shannon on their trip to Iceland. Credit: Jen Bays 
2/2 Jen enjoyed the gorgeous scenery in Iceland, including waterfalls like this. Credit: Jen Bays
What’s something unique or fun about you that someone wouldn’t know from your resume?
One thing people often don’t realize is how much I enjoy building things. I love taking an idea that starts as a simple observation and gradually turning it into a complete scientific story, from designing constructs and developing new assays to eventually imagining how it could become a therapy.
This passion extends beyond the lab. I have a young kid, and together we love building and creating with just about anything, but we especially enjoy LEGO bricks, magnetic tiles, popsicle sticks, kinetic sand, slime, and oobleck. Personally, I also love assembling furniture; I may have a slight IKEA addiction.
If you had to choose an entirely different career path, what would it be?
I’d probably become an architect. I enjoy solving complex problems that require creativity and careful planning, and I like thinking about how individual components come together to create something functional. In many ways, scientific research isn’t that different; you’re constantly designing, testing, and refining systems until they work.
What does it feel like to be working on cutting-edge technology that has the potential to have a real and significant impact on people’s lives and society?
It’s both exciting and humbling. Scientific progress usually comes through thousands of small, incremental advances, so it’s easy to become focused on the next experiment. But every so often, I step back and remember that the work we’re doing could one day improve someone’s life. That’s an incredible privilege and responsibility. It motivates me to be rigorous, collaborative, and persistent, knowing that each experiment is another step toward making a meaningful impact.