Wyss InstituteSensors – Wyss Institute

Hani Sallum on Engineering Prototypes for Researchers, Patients, and the Planet

Jessica Leff — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 13:00:46 +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. Hani Sallum is always tinkering, whether he’s creating an eight-foot-tall robot costume to show off at a convention or designing a carbon dioxide-powered seawater collection system to…

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Preventing pollution with bioinspired solutions

Jessica Leff — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 21:14:47 +0000

By Lindsay Brownell In honor of Pollution Prevention Week, we’re highlighting three Wyss projects that are taking on the formidable problems of PFAS and plastic – persistent and toxic pollutants that threaten the health of humans, animals, and ecosystems. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), or “forever chemicals,” are toxic substances that increase the risk of many health…

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Project Air: Bioinspired Sensor of Volatile Compounds

Jessica Leff — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 13:50:34 +0000

We are bringing to market an innovative, bioinspired sensor of volatile compounds that gives building operators confidence in the measurement of gasses indoors and provides guidance to achieving healthy indoor air quality (IAQ). Project Air is affordable, accurate, and highly sensitive thanks to the advanced data collection and processing implemented to substantially increase the reliability of…

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Starting a fluorescent biosensor revolution

Mariel Schoen — Thu, 05 Sep 2024 09:00:00 +0000

By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — Biosensors – devices that use biological molecules to detect the presence of a target substance – have enormous potential for detecting disease biomarkers, molecules-in-action in diverse biological processes, or toxins and other harmful substances in the environment. One of the more common types, fluorescent biosensors, consists of a target-binding biomolecule…

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The Wyss Institute’s 2024-2025 Validation Projects

Jessica Leff — Wed, 29 May 2024 14:55:23 +0000

Every year the Wyss Institute names a class of Validation Projects whose teams receive dedicated funding, business development support, and other resources to advance their promising technologies towards commercialization. They also collaborate with key opinion leaders, investors, and potential customers to de-risk their innovations and speed their progress to the market. This year…

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Instrument-Free Molecular Diagnostics

Mariel Schoen — Wed, 01 May 2024 17:25:23 +0000

Molecular diagnostics is the fastest-growing segment of the global in vitro diagnostics market, but the vast majority of these tests require expensive equipment and supplies, limiting their use to medical facilities. There is a large unmet need for cheap, readily accessible, accurate diagnostic tests that can be deployed in non-clinical settings to address threats to public health…

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MyoExo: Wearable Muscle-Centric Sensors for Improved Assessment of Neurological Disorders

Jessica Leff — Wed, 01 May 2024 14:00:27 +0000

Abnormal changes in muscle function are hallmarks of a collection of neurological disorders, including Parkinson’s Disease (PD), essential tremor, epilepsy, certain sleep disorders, and others. For example, patients with PD can have slowed movements (bradykinesia), tremors, and muscle stiffness (rigidity) – doctors need to detect at least two of the three signs for a positive diagnosis.

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Paper-Based Diagnostics

admin — Wed, 01 May 2024 00:34:41 +0000

With the imminent threat of new pandemics and frequent disease outbreaks exemplified by the recent Ebola and Zika epidemics, there is a growing need for low-cost, easily deployable and simple-to-use diagnostic tools. The Wyss Institute has developed paper-based synthetic gene networks as a next generation diagnostic technology for use in global healthcare crises and patient care. This new type of…

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eRapid: Multiplexed Electrochemical Sensors for Fast, Accurate, Portable Diagnostics

admin — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 19:58:09 +0000

Handheld electrochemical sensors have revolutionized at-home medical testing for diabetics, but they have not yet been successfully applied to diagnosing other conditions. These sensors are based on the activity of an enzyme, and there are only a limited number of enzymes that can be used to detect biomarkers of human disease. An alternative, much more broadly applicable sensing strategy based on…

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Solving Sustainability with Synthetic Biology

Mariel Schoen — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 12:58:58 +0000

By Lindsay Brownell As humans, we like to think that we are the smartest animals on planet Earth. After all, no other species has invented smartphones, heat pumps, or jet engines. But for all our innovations, we have also created problems on a global scale. Take plastic, for example. Humans invented plastic scarcely more than a century ago, but we now produce more than 350 million…

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