Dr. Artzi joins the Wyss from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital
The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University is pleased to announce the appointment of Natalie Artzi, Ph.D., to the Institute’s esteemed roster of Associate Faculty members. Dr. Artzi is currently an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. In addition, she is a Principal Research Scientist at the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science at MIT, a Research Scientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and an Associate Member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.
Leveraging material science, chemistry, imaging, and biology, Dr. Artzi’s laboratory is dedicated to designing smart biomaterial platforms and medical devices to improve human health, and her team has been working on the design of scaffolds for local delivery of nanoparticle-based therapeutics. Her approach has resulted in notable improvements in therapeutic outcomes with a focus on designing personalized materials and medical devices to combat cancer, improve tissue regeneration in orthopedic applications, and to overcome gastrointestinal diseases.
Trained as a chemical engineer at the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) and MIT, Dr. Artzi pioneered basic understanding of the contextual performance of biomaterials under different environments and pathological states. Her multidisciplinary team works on the design of smart biomaterials for disease monitoring. Additionally, they are investigating gene and cell therapy deliveries for a range of diseases and for tissue regeneration applications.
Understanding the biology associated with a disease, leveraging existing and emerging drugs, and designing biomaterials that can deliver these drugs to a cell and target the site within the cell more effectively can potentially transform treatment outcomes. To that end, Dr. Artzi and her team develop non-viral delivery systems for systemic delivery of gene therapy, targeting cells such as cancer cells and immune cells. In addition, they leverage different administration routes to deliver drugs (or nanoparticles containing drugs) and are engineering injectable materials that gel rapidly upon injection and adhere to target within the injection site to afford localized and sustained delivery of therapies, eliminating the need to cross many of the biological delivery barriers associated with systemic administration.
My team’s interdisciplinary work leverages engineering, biology, and medicine to make nanomaterials for the early detection of diseases and to improve the efficacy of therapies. It is the similar interdisciplinary spirit of the Wyss that makes me thrilled to join the Institute.
“My team’s interdisciplinary work leverages engineering, biology, and medicine to make nanomaterials for the early detection of diseases and to improve the efficacy of therapies. It is the similar interdisciplinary spirit of the Wyss that makes me thrilled to join the Institute. I look forward to working with my fellow faculty members, as well as with other collaborators at the Wyss, and exploring the synergies that my lab and I can bring to propelling our collective technologies from the bench to the bedside,” said Dr. Artzi.
Dr. Artzi has received many honors including the inaugural Kabiller Rising Star Award in Nanotechnology and Nanomedicine from Northwestern University, the One Brave Idea Award, Stepping Strong Innovator Award, Mid-Career Award from the Society for Biomaterials, Controlled Release Society Young Investigator Award, Brigham Bright Futures Prize, and the Massachusetts Life Science Center for women entrepreneurs. Her passion lies in medical innovation, and, as a biomedical researcher, professor, and entrepreneur, she works to translate new technologies to bring about positive near-term treatments to patients.
“On behalf of the entire Wyss Institute, I am very pleased to welcome Natalie Artzi as a member of our Associate Faculty. Her demonstrated ability to pursue collaborative and cross-disciplinary research with an entrepreneurial focus in a broad range of areas from biomaterials, therapeutics and diagnostics to regenerative medicine and immune engineering completely aligns with the Wyss vision and spirit,” said Wyss Founding Director and Core Faculty Member Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., who is also the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, and the Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Bioinspired Engineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Dr. Artzi joins a distinguished list of Associate Faculty members at The Wyss Institute that include:
Joanna Aizenberg, Ph.D.
Bioinspired Materials
Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Sangeeta Bhatia, M.D., Ph.D.
Multiscale Regeneration
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Paolo Bonato, Ph.D.
Robotic Rehabilitation
Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital
Elliot Chaikof, M.D., Ph.D
Regenerative Medicine
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Christopher Chen, M.D., Ph.D.
Tissue Modeling & Regeneration
Boston University
Georg Duda, Ph.D.
Biomechanics & Regeneration
Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin
Simon Hoerstrup, M.D., Ph.D.
Tissue Engineering & Regenerative Medicine
Wyss Translational Center Zürich
Michael Levin, Ph.D.
Computational & Developmental Biology
Tufts University
Kevin Kit Parker, Ph.D.
Disease Biophysics
Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Conor Walsh, Ph.D.
Soft Robotics
Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Shaw Warren, M.D.
Infectious Disease & Inflammation
Massachusetts General Hospital
George Whitesides, Ph.D.
Bioinspired Engineering
Harvard University
Wesley Wong, Ph.D.
Molecular Robotics
Harvard Medical School
Robert Wood, Ph.D.
Microrobotics
Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Ting Wu, Ph.D.
Chromosome Behavior & Positioning
Harvard Medical School