Wyss InstituteTargeted Drug Delivery – Wyss Institute

Wyss Institute team selected by DARPA-SHIELD program to develop first-of-its-kind biologically engineered broad-spectrum antimicrobial therapeutic

Jessica Leff — Mon, 16 Sep 2024 13:25:50 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University received a contract for up to $12M from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)’s new SHIELD program. The SHIELD (Synthetic Hemo-technologies to Locate and Disinfect) program aims to develop a prophylactic treatment that can be broadly administered to…

Source

Wyss Institute Research Collaboration Awarded ARPA-H Agreement to Develop Disease-Agnostic Immunotherapeutic RNA Platform

Jessica Leff — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 14:55:26 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner With the award for up to $27M from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), a collaborative research project at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University will advance a disease-agnostic novel RNA therapeutic with the potential to treat diverse diseases, and to be effectively and rapidly deployable.

Source

DNA Nanostructures for Drug Delivery

admin — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 05:58:48 +0000

Researchers at the Wyss Institute have developed two methods for building arbitrarily shaped nanostructures using DNA, with a focus on translating the technology towards nanofabrication and drug delivery applications. One proprietary nanofabrication technique, called “DNA-brick self-assembly,” uses short, synthetic strands of DNA that work like interlocking Lego® bricks. It capitalizes on the…

Source

Wyss Institute’s AminoX project receives funding from Northpond Labs to accelerate innovation in protein-based therapeutics

Mariel Schoen — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 14:55:29 +0000

By Lindsay Brownell (BOSTON) — The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and Northpond Ventures announced today that the VC firm’s affiliate Northpond Labs has signed an agreement to support the development of the AminoX project toward commercialization. This is the fourth Wyss project selected by Northpond Labs for additional funding.

Source

Empty “backpacks” activate the immune system against cancer

Jessica Leff — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 13:54:42 +0000

By Lindsay Brownell (BOSTON) — Most of the white blood cells in your body are a type of cell called neutrophils. Despite their high numbers, they are less well understood than other immune cells, in part because they have very short lifespans: an average neutrophil lives for only eight hours. However, recent work has shown that neutrophils are very flexible cells…

Source

The Wyss Brain Targeting Program is expanding its “neural network”

Mariel Schoen — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 22:02:14 +0000

The Wyss Brain Targeting Program is discovering and developing new brain transport shuttles that are safe and effective, along with specially engineered mice in which drugs fused to the brain shuttles can be tested. These brain shuttles and mouse models are now available for non-exclusive licensing. The Wyss Brain Targeting Program was created as an R&D hub to promote collaboration among…

Source

Using the body’s own cells to treat traumatic brain injury

Jessica Leff — Wed, 03 Jan 2024 18:55:53 +0000

By Lindsay Brownell (BOSTON) — Scientists have created a new treatment for traumatic brain injury (TBI) that shrank brain lesions by 56% and significantly reduced local inflammation levels in pigs. The new approach leverages macrophages, a type of white blood cell that can dial inflammation up or down in the body in response to infection and injury. The team created disc-shaped microparticles…

Source

Liqun Wang on Delivering Drugs to the Brain

Jessica Leff — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 15:50:42 +0000

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. Liqun Wang has always been fascinated by neuroscience. Early in her career, she did basic biomedical research to better understand a rare neurodegenerative disease called Alexander Disease.

Source

Moving the needle on monitoring skin cancer

Jessica Leff — Mon, 21 Aug 2023 14:58:30 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — Patients with melanoma, the most concerning form of skin cancer in which pigment-producing cells start to grow out of control, can benefit from existing immunotherapies, but by far not all of them do. More than 50% of patients do not respond to current immunotherapy drugs and among those that initially respond, many become resistant to the drugs’ effects. Thus…

Source

Genetic & Cellular Engineering w/ David Schaffer & Samir Mitragotri – BIOS Roundtable

Jessica Leff — Mon, 07 Aug 2023 16:54:29 +0000

Samir Mitragotri is a Core Faculty member at the Wyss Institute and the Hiller Professor of Bioengineering & Hansjorg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard SEAS. David Schaffer is Professor at UC Berkeley & Director at BBH. The two discuss Genetic and Cellular Engineering, with a focus on delivery challenges.

Source