Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering use Nature's design principles to develop bioinspired materials and devices that will transform medicine and create a more sustainable world. In this podcast series, Terrence McNally speaks directly with Institute researchers, exploring their motivations and how they envision our future as it might be impacted by their disruptive technologies.

Disruptive: Wyss Institute at Harvard University

Genetic Therapy

What sorts of breakthroughs are possible by modifying an organism’s genome – something researchers are now able to do ever more cheaply and efficiently? Researchers around the world are already able to program microbes to treat waste water, generate electricity, manufacture jet fuel, create hemoglobin, and fabricate new drugs. What sounds like science fiction to most of us might be a reality in our lifetimes: the ability to build diagnostic tools that live within our bodies, or find ways to eradicate malaria from mosquito lines, or possibly even to make genetic improvements in humans that are passed down to future generations. Wyss Institute Founding Core Faculty Pam Silver and George Church discuss the high-impact benefits of their synthetic biology work, as well as how they manage the potential of unintended consequences.

Disruptive: Synthetic Biology

In part 3 of the Bioinspired Robotics episode, Wyss Core Faculty Member Conor Walsh discusses how a wearable robotic exosuit or soft robotic glove could assist people with mobility impairments, as well as how the goal to create real-world applications drives his research approach.

Our bodies — and all living systems — accomplish tasks far more complex and dynamic than anything yet designed by humans.  Many of the most advanced robots in use today are still far less sophisticated than ants that "self-organize" to build an ant hill, or termites that work together to build impressive, massive mounds in Africa. From insects in your backyard, to creatures in the sea, to what we see in the mirror, engineers and scientists at the Wyss Institute are drawing inspiration from nature to design whole new classes of smart swarm, soft, wearable and popup robotic devices. In this three part episode, Wyss Institute Core Faculty Members Radhika Nagpal, Robert Wood and Conor Walsh discuss the high-impact benefits of their bioinspired robotic work, as well as what drove them to this cutting-edge field.

Disruptive: Bioinspired Robots (pt. 3 - Wearable Robotics)

In part 1 of the Bioinspired Robotics episode, Wyss Founding Core Faculty Member Radhika Nagpal discusses swarm collectives, as well as the challenges faced by women in the engineering and computer science fields.

Our bodies — and all living systems — accomplish tasks far more complex and dynamic than anything yet designed by humans.  Many of the most advanced robots in use today are still far less sophisticated than ants that "self-organize" to build an ant hill, or termites that work together to build impressive, massive mounds in Africa. From insects in your backyard, to creatures in the sea, to what we see in the mirror, engineers and scientists at the Wyss Institute are drawing inspiration from nature to design whole new classes of smart swarm, soft, wearable and popup robotic devices. In this three part episode, Wyss Institute Core Faculty Members Radhika Nagpal, Robert Wood and Conor Walsh discuss the high-impact benefits of their bioinspired robotic work, as well as what drove them to this cutting-edge field.

Disruptive: Bioinspired Robotics (pt. 1 - Swarm Collectives)

In part 2 of the Bioinspired Robotics episode, Wyss Founding Core Faculty Member Robert Wood discusses new manufacturing techniques that are enabling popup and soft robots.

Our bodies — and all living systems — accomplish tasks far more complex and dynamic than anything yet designed by humans. Many of the most advanced robots in use today are still far less sophisticated than ants that "self-organize" to build an ant hill, or termites that work together to build impressive, massive mounds in Africa. From insects in your backyard, to creatures in the sea, to what we see in the mirror, engineers and scientists at the Wyss Institute are drawing inspiration from nature to design whole new classes of smart swarm, soft, wearable and popup robotic devices. In this three part episode, Wyss Institute Core Faculty Members Radhika Nagpal, Robert Wood and Conor Walsh discuss the high-impact benefits of their bioinspired robotic work, as well as what drove them to this cutting-edge field.

Disruptive: Bioinspired Robotics (pt. 2 - Materials, Manufacturing and Design)

Sepsis is a bloodstream infection caused by an uncontrolled spread of pathogens and release of toxins that can lead to systemic inflammation and multi-organ failure. Sepsis is the leading cause of hospital deaths and kills at least eight million people worldwide each year. Current treatment is to administer patients broad-spectrum antibiotics because there is often not enough time to identify the specific cause of infection. Diagnosis takes two to five days and every hour one waits can increase the risk of death by 5-9%.

In this episode of Disruptive, Wyss Institute Founding Director Don Ingber and Senior Staff Scientist Mike Super discuss how their team developed a new therapeutic device inspired by the human spleen. This blood-cleansing approach can remove sepsis-causing pathogens from circulating blood without ever needing to know their identity. In animal studies, treatment with this device reduced the number of targeted pathogens and toxins circulating in the bloodstream by more than 99%. This device may radically transform the way sepsis is treated.

Disruptive: Confronting Sepsis

Developed at the Wyss, FISSEQ (fluorescent in situ sequencing) is a spatial gene sequencing technology that reads and visualizes the three-dimensional coordinates of RNA and mRNAs – the working copies of genes – within whole cells and tissues. FISSEQ affords insights into biological complexity that until now have not been possible.

In this episode of Disruptive, Wyss Core Faculty member George Church, Wyss Senior Staff Scientist Rich Terry, and former Wyss Entrepreneur-in-Residence Shawn Marcell discuss FISSEQ's development and translational potential, which could be used to advance the development of diagnostics and discovery of new drug targets.

Disruptive: Fluorescent In Situ Sequencing

The Wyss Institute uses Nature's design principles to develop bioinspired technologies that will revolutionize medicine and create a more sustainable world.