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The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering (pronounced "veese") is a cross-disciplinary research institute at Harvard University that focuses on developing bioinspired materials and devices for applications in healthcare and sustainability.

Initiated with a gift from Hansjörg Wyss, the Wyss Institute is located in Boston’s Longwood Medical Area and has 375 full-time staff. The Wyss is organized around eight focus areas, each of which integrate faculty, postdocs, fellows, and staff scientists. The focus areas are bioinspired therapeutics & diagnostics, diagnostics accelerator, immuno-materials, living cellular devices, molecular robotics, 3D organ engineering, predictive bioanalytics and synthetic biology.

Translating technological discoveries into commercial products and therapies is an important part of the organization's mission.

History
In 2005, Harvard University established a faculty working group to envision the future of bioengineering. The group was called the Harvard Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering (HIBIE), with the committee focused on synthetic biology, living materials, and biological control. HIBIE was co-chaired by Harvard professors Donald E. Ingber and David J. Mooney. The Wyss Institute was officially launched in January 2009 with a $125 million gift to Harvard—at the time, the largest single philanthropic gift in its history—from Hansjörg Wyss. Ingber became the founding director of the Wyss Institute and David Mooney became a founding Core Faculty member, along with Professors Joanna Aizenberg, David A. Edwards, Kit Parker, George M. Whitesides, George Church, Ary Goldberger, William Shih, Robert Wood, James J. Collins, L. Mahadevan, Radhika Nagpal, and Pamela Silver.

In 2013, Hansjörg Wyss gave another $125 million to Harvard University, doubling his initial gift. The funding was used to further the Institute’s interdisciplinary research, which includes DNA engineering, cleaning toxins from blood, vibrating insoles to help older adults maintain balance, and a melanoma cancer vaccine. In 2019, Hansjörg Wyss donated a third gift of $131 million to the Wyss Institute. In 2020, the Wyss Institute and Northpond Ventures, a Maryland-based venture capital firm, created the Laboratory for Bioengineering Research and Innovation at the Wyss Institute. The $12 million funding supports research related to RNA therapies, genome engineering, and new drug delivery methods.

Within its first ten years, the Institute also spun out 29 startups.

Scientific developments
The Wyss Institute has been responsible for a number of scientific developments and spinoffs.


 * In 2010, Donald Ingber pioneered the first 3D organ-on-a-chip that mimics a human lung. Following the lung-on-a-chip, the team built a kidney-on-a-chip and an intestine-on-a-chip. In 2014, Emulate spun out to make organ chips commercially available for other scientists to use for disease modeling and drug testing,  including those at Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Takeda, Roche, and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.


 * In 2013, Conor Walsh developed a soft exosuit that uses textiles and cables to replicate leg muscles, which can help a healthy wearer not fatigue as quickly and help people with physical disabilities restore their muscles and increase mobility.  In 2016, ReWalk robotics licensed the exosuit technology for the treatment of stroke, Multiple Sclerosis (MS), and mobility limitations. In 2019, ReWalk received clearance from the FDA to sell their ReStore soft exosuit for rehabilitation of stroke survivors.


 * In 2013, David Mooney and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute began a Phase I clinical trial for an implantable cancer vaccine. In 2018, Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis licensed the technology. Mooney also developed injectable versions of their cancer vaccine.


 * In 2014, Jennifer A. Lewis developed inks and a process to 3D bioprint organs that could be suitable for human transplants. In 2022, Trestle Biotherapeutics licensed technology to develop 3D bioprinted kidney tissue from Harvard University.


 * In 2014, James J. Collins and MIT developed an inexpensive diagnostic that consists of cellular "machinery" (proteins, nucleic acids and ribosomes) freeze-dried on paper. The team tested their diagnostic with Ebola virus and in 2016 they tested it with the Zika virus. In 2021, the technology was licensed to Sherlock Biosciences.


 * In 2015, Donald Ingber engineered a blood protein that binds to more than 90 sepsis-causing pathogens, including bacteria, fungi, viruses, and parasites. The technology was licensed by BOA Biomedical and approved in 2021 by the FDA to conduct human clinical trials.


 * In 2015, Conor Walsh developed is a soft robotic grip glove to restore mobility for people with impaired hand function. In 2021, Imago Rehab spun out to develop the soft robotic glove for stroke rehabilitation.


 * In 2017 David J. Mooney, inspired by the sticky properties of Arion subfuscus slug secretions, developed a non-toxic hydrogel adhesive that sticks to wet surfaces and stretches, making it ideal for use within the body.


 * In 2019, George Church published research on combination gene therapy to treat multiple age-related diseases in mice, including diabetes, heart disease and kidney disease. The team founded Rejuvenate Bio to further develop the technology to treat age-related diseases in dogs.


 * In 2019, George Church's lab developed a machine-learning approach to make more efficient adeno-associated viruses (AAVs), which are delivery vehicles for gene therapies. This team spun out Dyno Therapeutics to continue developing enhanced AAVs. Dyno Therapeutics has partnerships with pharmaceutical companies Novartis, Sarepta Therapeutics, and Roche. In 2021, Dyno Therapeutics raised a $100 million Series A.


 * In 2020, Michael Levin and Josh Bongard developed new synthetic lifeform called Xenobots made from skin cells and heart muscle cells from the African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis). The scientists use an AI program to design the Xenobots to carry out desired functions, learning how cells cooperate to build complex bodies during morphogenesis and about regenerative medicine more broadly.


 * In 2021, Jennifer A. Lewis and Massachusetts Eye and Ear hospital developed PhonoGraft, a 3D-printed regenerative eardrum graft. The team launched a startup company that was acquired by Desktop Health, a subsidiary of Desktop Metal.


 * In 2021, Pamela Silver engineered bacteria to feed off of greenhouse gasses to then produce fats similar to animal and vegetable fats, as well as polymers similar to those made from petrochemicals.

Response to COVID
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wyss Institute was engaged in several notable efforts.
 * A diagnostic face mask that can detect SARS-CoV-2 RNA in the wearer’s breath was developed by James J. Collins's group. Results take about 90 minutes, are as effective as FDA-approved COVID-19 PCR tests, and costs about $5 in materials to make.
 * Donald Ingber's team applied eRapid to detect the nucleic acids of the genome of SARS-CoV-2. In 2022, Antisoma Therapeutics licensed the eRapid technology for respiratory viral illnesses, cancer, and immune/allergic disease. Antisoma plans to use eRapid to develop a point-of-care diagnostic test for COVID-19.
 * Previously undocumented nucleic acid contamination were identified during routine experiments, which inadvertently caused scientists to test positive for COVID-19 even though they were not infected with the coronavirus. This led to the development of new safety protocols to protect researchers and ensure data integrity.
 * The Wyss Institute developed a new nasal swab that could be manufactured quickly and more easily. The Wyss-designed swabs were used in human trials in hospitals in Arizona and New York. The Wyss team lead, Richard Novak, collaborated with Mike Springer at Harvard Medical School, to use the swabs in an automated testing system. In 2021, the startup Rhinostics launched from the Wyss to use the nasal swabs in an automated multiplexed processing system to test samples for COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases.
 * The team at the Wyss used computational approaches and organ-chips to identify FDA-approved drugs that could be repurposed to prevent or treat Covid-19. Amodiaquine, an antimalarial drug, reduced COVID-19 infection by 60% in the Organ Chip model and is now being tested in human COVID-19 patients in Africa. Cantex Pharmaseutical’s Azeliragon was identified as a promising treatment for COVID-19.