Despite major advances in personalized medicine, targeted drugs, and immunotherapies, many cancers remain difficult – or impossible – to treat. Even when therapies work, they can trigger serious secondary health risks that may themselves become life-threatening.
Wyss Institute researchers are tackling these challenges head-on by developing new therapies that more powerfully activate the immune system, sharpen the precision of existing treatments, and make side effects more predictable and manageable. From RNA-based immune activation platforms to real-time blood clot diagnostics and personalized tumor testing on Organ Chips, Wyss teams are engineering cancer solutions designed to improve outcomes and quality of life for cancer patients.
“Swiss Army knife” immunotherapy for cancer and infectious disease
ARPA-H-funded RNA immunotherapy aims to activate innate immunity against tumors and infections
Can the immune system be jolted into action against a wide range of cancers and other diseases? Associate Institute Director and Core Faculty member Natalie Artzi, Ph.D., who is the lead investigator on the project with co-principal investigator Founding Director Don Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., Senior Director of Translational R&D Ken Carlson, Ph.D., and Core Faculty member William Shih, Ph.D., believe the answer is yes.
With generous support from ARPA-H, the team is advancing a novel RNA immunotherapy delivered through tailored systems that strongly activate the innate immune system – the body’s first line of defense against tumors, as well as many viral and bacterial infections. In cancer patients, this early immune response can be followed by cancer cell–specific T cell and antibody activity, whose tumor-fighting effects may outlast the RNA drug itself and work synergistically with other immunotherapies.
The ARPA-H contract enables the team to significantly accelerate and expand progress toward an Investigational New Drug (IND) submission to the FDA.
Preventing deadly blood clots in mesothelioma patients
Innovative technology aims to identify clot risk early so clinicians can intervene sooner
For patients suffering from malignant pleural mesothelioma, an aggressive lung cancer, surgery can be lifesaving, but it also carries a dangerous complication: 33% of patients develop blood clots, which can travel to vital organs with fatal consequences.
That level of risk was unacceptable to Raphael Bueno, Chief of Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s Division of Thoracic Surgery, and Wyss bioengineers. Supported by a philanthropic gift through the Wyss DxA and Validation Project funding, the Blood Clot Dx team, Scientist Abidemi Junaid, Ph.D., Senior Engineer Adama Sesay, Ph.D., and Founding Director Don Ingber, designed a device that detects abnormal blood flow in mesothelioma patient samples.
Combined with machine learning, the technology could enable clinicians to assess blood clot risk in real time and, when needed, initiate anticoagulation treatment early, thus helping prevent potentially fatal outcomes.
Personalizing treatment for one of the world’s deadliest cancers
Personalized Organ Chip technology could improve outcomes for esophageal adenocarcinoma
Esophageal adenocarcinoma is the sixth-deadliest cancer worldwide. Today, it is typically treated with chemotherapy prior to surgery in hopes of shrinking tumors. But many patients develop resistance to certain chemotherapy drugs, leading to poor outcomes and limited options.
To help clinicians select more effective treatments, Don Ingber’s team collaborated with Lorenzo Ferri, head of Thoracic and Upper Gastrointestinal Surgery at McGill University, to develop a personalized medicine solution: patient-specific Esophageal Organ Chips.
These chips can accurately predict how an individual patient’s tumor will respond to chemotherapy, offering a powerful novel approach to treatment selection that could improve outcomes at clinical centers.
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