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

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Hexagram sera l’hôte du premier LASER (Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous) au Québec, en partenariat avec Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology et OBORO.
S’appuyant sur les méthodologies et processus spécifiques de l’artiste-chercheur et du chercheur scientifique travaillant avec de nouveaux matériaux, cette table-ronde rassemblera des experts en ingénierie, en sciences informatiques, en textiles interactifs et en art et technologie médiatique autour d’une discussion stimulante sur l’impact de la technologie sur les pratiques de recherche.
 
Nina Czegledy, membre du conseil d’administration de Leonardo, présentera la série LASER
 
AVEC
Joanna Berzowska, membre d’Hexagram, Université Concordia, modérateur
Alice Jarry, membre étudiant d’Hexagram, Université du Québec à Montréal
Brigitte Kerhervé, membre d’Hexagram, Université du Québec à Montréal
Maroun Massabki, directeur du développement et de l’innovation chez Optech
 
En français
Ouvert à tous
Gratuit
 
jeudi 20 novembre 2014
19h-20h
 
OBORO Laboratoire nouveaux médias
Studio 1
4001, rue Berri (angle Duluth)
2e étage
Montréal, Québec H2L 4H2
 
crédit d’image:
Alice Jarry, Spectrales (2014). Installation cinétique suspendue.
Photo : Michel Paquet

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Hexagram will host the first LASER (Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous) in Québec, in partnership with Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology and OBORO.
 
Informed by researcher and researcher-creators’ particular methodologies, processes and practices working with new materials, this roundtable brings together experts in engineering, computer science, interactive textiles and art and media technology in a lively discussion about the impact of technologies on research practices.
 
Nina Czegledy, Leonardo/ISAST board member, will present the LASER series.
 
WITH
Joanna Berzowska, Hexagram member, Concordia University, moderator
Alice Jarry, Hexagram student member, Université du Québec à Montréal
Brigitte Kerhervé, Hexagram member, Université du Québec à Montréal
Maroun Massabki, Director of Development and Innovation at Optech
 
Thursday November 20th, 2014
7 pm – 8 pm
 
OBORO New Media Lab
Studio 1
4001 Berri Street (at Duluth)
2nd Floor
Montréal, Québec H2L 4H2
 
In French
Open to the public
Free of charge
 
Image Credit:
Alice Jarry, Spectrales (2014). Suspended kinetic installation.
Photo: Michel Paquet

Laser 1 - Innovative Materials + Processes

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

How can a materials science approach lead to medical breakthroughs?

In this episode of Disruptive, Wyss Core Faculty Member Dave Mooney discusses programmable nanomaterials approaches to fighting disease. Mooney explains how a cancer vaccine, developed by his team and currently in a clinical trial at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, can train one’s own immune system to target specific cancer cells. He also describes the development of novel hydrogels that find application in drug delivery systems and tissue regeneration. Chris Gemmiti, a member of the Wyss Institute’s Business Development team, joins the conversation to discuss the Wyss process of translation and what is involved in bringing the hydrogel drug delivery technology from bench-to-bedside.

Disruptive: Cancer Vaccine & Hydrogel Drug Delivery

Guests: Harvey Wang and Todd Vorenkamp

Have you ever shot film?  Do you still shoot film? Does it make a difference in your work? Is your work defined by it? This episode of the B&H Photography Podcast addresses an issue that is still at the heart of photography—does the medium you choose affect the way you work and, ultimately, the images you produce?  With the recent release of his book, From Darkroom to Daylight, we will talk with photographer Harvey Wang and with writer and photographer Todd Vorenkamp about the differences between shooting film and shooting digital images. From the perspectives of those who grew up shooting film and those who did not, we’ll discuss working process, technological developments, quality of images and yes—nostalgia. Wang will also recount from his book conversations on this subject with legendary photographers such as Eugene Richards, Elliott Erwitt, Sally Mann, and George Tice. 



Subscribe on iTunes

Film versus Digital Imaging, with Harvey Wang

How can DNA be programmed to build novel structures, devices, and robots?

We have taken our understanding of DNA to another level, beginning to take advantage of some of DNA’s properties that have served nature so well, but in ways nature itself may have never pursued. Humans can now use DNA as a medium for nano-scale engineering. The resulting newly programmed and built DNA structures can enhance our ability to see and study molecular interactions and the inner-life of cells. As these structures become increasingly complex and versatile, they have the potential to spawn entirely new and revolutionary technologies for biological monitoring, therapeutic delivery, and applications scientists have not even thought of yet.

In this episode of Disruptive, Wyss faculty members William Shih, Wesley Wong, and Peng Yin discuss what it is like being on the frontier of science, and the potential applications of their DNA-programming work.

Disruptive: Molecular Robotics

George Church
Responsibility, art & science of intentional extinction, de-extinction & aging
Wednesday, Feb 17, 2016

ArtScience @ Le Lab Lecture Series: Art, Design, Engineering & Biology – Core Faculty from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University discuss how the arts and design are informing the frontiers of science.

ArtScience @ Le Lab is a free, biweekly evening seminar series organized for the general public in the magical "Honeycomb" of Le Lab Cambridge and Café ArtScience. Artists, designers, scientists, chefs, engineers, perfumers -- and more -- talk about creativity and culture at the edges of art, science and design. For more information, please visit http://www.lelaboratoirecambridge.com or http://wyss.harvard.edu.

George Church: Responsibility, art & science of intentional extinction, de-extinction & aging

Biofilms are commonly known as the slime-producing bacterial communities sitting on stones in streams, dirty pipes and drains, or dental plaque. However, Wyss Core Faculty member Neel Joshi is putting to work the very properties that make biofilms effective nuisances or threats in our daily lives. In this episode of Disruptive, Joshi and postdoctoral fellow Anna Duraj-Thatte discuss the development of a novel protein engineering system called BIND, Biofilm-Integrated Nanofiber Display, which uses biofilms to help clean up polluted rivers, manufacture pharmaceutical products, and fabricate new textiles.

Disruptive: Putting Biofilms to Work

Wet-Collodion, Daguerreotype, Tintype, Calotype, Gum Bichromate, Van Dyke Brown. Oh my! On this week’s podcast, we welcome Geoffrey Berliner, Executive Director of the Penumbra Foundation, and photographer Jolene Lupo, to talk about alternative process photography. The Penumbra Foundation is an exceptional organization, dedicated to the art, science, and history of photography and Berliner outlines their history and mission and the workshops and facilities they make available to all photographers, while Lupo discusses her tintype work at Penumbra and her Spirit Photography. This episode is a true education, not just on the various alternative processes, but on the history of photography and on how learning the original pre-film processes will improve your digital photography.

Guests: Geoffrey Berliner and Jolene Lupo
Photograph by Jolene Lupo


Alternative Process Photography in the Digital Age – Penumbra Foundation

February 15, 2017

Listen to Wyss Core Faculty member William Shih’s lecture on how custom molecular shapes can be designed using DNA building blocks and how these minuscule devices could have a profound impact on fields ranging from molecular biophysics to therapeutics to nano-optics for decades to come. Shih’s lecture is part of the ArtScience lecture series at Le Laboratoire in Cambridge, MA.

ArtScience @ Le Lab is a free, biweekly evening seminar series organized for the general public in the magical “Honeycomb” of Le Laboratoire Cambridge and Café ArtScience. Artists, designers, scientists, chefs, engineers, perfumers — and more — talk about creativity and culture at the edges of art, science and design. For more information, please visit http://www.lelaboratoirecambridge.com or http://wyss.harvard.edu/events.

William Shih: Lego-Style Construction of Future Therapeutics From DNA

Wyss Core Faculty member David Mooney presents a talk with Mary Mooney, titled Seeing Is Believing: Therapeutic Cancer Vaccines. Marshalling a patient’s immune system to recognize and destroy cancerous cells is an exciting strategy to attack cancer, and this talk will explore materials that engage the immune system through science and artistic representation.
 
Mary K. Mooney is a Massachusetts artist who spent many years working as a designer in the apparel industry. Now the Massachusetts landscape provides Mary with the inspiration for her Plein Air paintings. With the Boston area so rich in natural beauty and history, Mary finds peace being one with nature as she paints. Learning the history behind each scene has always been an important aspect in choosing a location. Classically trained in the traditional style of the French Atelier realist painters, the science of light and how it affects color plays an important role in her paintings. These techniques inform her more realistic Still life paintings that contrast the looser style of her landscape paintings. In recent years Mary has also been creating mixed media sculptures using found objects and repurposing these object to give them new life. In an age of recycling, Mary finds it satisfying to utilize an interesting object found on the street. Mary has a BFA in Fine Arts and Design from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
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David Mooney is the Pinkas Family Professor of Bioengineering in the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and a Core Faculty Member of the Wyss Institute. His laboratory designs biomaterials to make cell and protein therapies effective and practical approaches to treat disease. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine, and the National Academy of Inventors. He has won numerous awards, including the Clemson Award from the SFB, MERIT award from the NIH, Distinguished Scientist Award from the IADR, Phi Beta Kappa Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, and the Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award from Harvard College. His inventions have been licensed by numerous companies, leading to commercialized products, and he is active on industrial scientific advisory boards.

David and Mary Mooney: Seeing Is Believing- Therapeutic Cancer Vaccines - AUDIO ONLY

Immunotherapy – treatment that uses the body’s own immune system to help fight disease – has groundbreaking and life-saving implications. In an effort to make immunotherapy more effective, Wyss Institute researches are developing new immuno-materials, which help modulate immune cells to treat or diagnose disease.

In this episode of Disruptive, Dave Mooney, Wyss Core Faculty member; Kai Wucherpfennig, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Cancer and Immunology and Virology department chair; and Aileen Li, Wyss Institute and Mooney Lab postdoctoral fellow, discuss their collaboration developing an injectable cancer vaccine. Guests also discuss other immuno-material applications, which could treat infections, diabetes, and addiction.

Disruptive: Cancer Vaccine and Immuno-Materials

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