Podcasts about biologically inspired engineering

In this episode, we talk with Dr. Li Li, Ph.D. Dr. Li is a Research Fellow in the Church Lab at Harvard Medical School and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. Her work focuses on regenerative medicine and gene therapy, with a specific interest in skin aging, wound healing, and inflammatory skin disorders. In her most recent pre-print, Dr. Li introduces a groundbreaking mRNA-based therapy targeting the ATF3 gene to combat skin aging. By integrating computational biology, machine learning, and genetic engineering, her work is paving the way for innovative treatments in dermatology and beyond. By collaborating closely with dermatologists and clinicians to bridge the gap between cutting-edge research and patient care, her work has the potential to revolutionize dermatology, offering new approaches to skin rejuvenation and regenerative therapies.Come and hear more about her research and experiences working at the forefront of dermatologic innovation. We hope you enjoy!If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with other students interested in dermatology!Learn More:LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/li-li-3916713b/Website:https://wyss.harvard.edu/news/humans-of-the-wyss-li-li-on-bringing-advanced-omics-technology-to-dermatology/---DIGA Instagram: @⁠derminterest⁠Host: @ashleyjini---For questions, comments, or futureepisode suggestions, please reach out to us via email at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠derminterestpod@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠---Music: District Four by Kevin MacLeodLink:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3662-district-four⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠License:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Claire chatted to Kirstin Petersen from Cornell University about how robots can work together to achieve complex behaviours. Kirstin Petersen is an Associate Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University. Her lab, the Collective Embodied Intelligence Lab, is focused on design and coordination of robot collectives able to achieve complex behaviors beyond the reach of an individual, and corresponding studies on how social insects do so in nature.  Petersen did her postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and her PhD at Harvard University and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. Join the Robot Talk community on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ClaireAsher

In this episode, I chat with Dr. Panizzolo about the Exoband, an innovative assistive technology for individuals with multiple sclerosis. We discuss what the Exoband is, who it's for, and how it enhances mobility and strength. If you're seeking effective tools and strategies to improve your quality of life with MS, tune in to learn how the Exoband can support your journey! Dr. Panizzolo is a Professor in Biomedical Engineering and Sport Science. He completed his PhD at the University of Western Australia in Biomechanics & Motor control and was a researcher at the Biodesign Lab of Harvard University and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. After carrying out research in Canada, Australia and the United States, he founded Moveo. The company is producing ExoBand, the most lightweight wearable device ever made to help people walk better. Resources mentioned in this episode: Exoband website - https://www.moveowalks.com/ Exoband Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/moveowalks Sign up for Dr. Gretchen's email list - https://www.doctorgretchenhawley.com/EmailList Check out The MSing Link program - https://www.drgretchenhawley.com/the-msing-link-program Additional Resources: https://www.doctorgretchenhawley.com/insider Reach out to Me: hello@doctorgretchenhawley.com Website: www.MSingLink.com Social: ★ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/mswellness ★ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doctor.gretchen ★ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/doctorgretchenhawley?sub_confirmation=1 → Game Changers Course: https://www.doctorgretchenhawley.com/GameChangersCourse → Total Core Program: https://www.doctorgretchenhawley.com/TotalCoreProgram → The MSing Link: https://www.doctorgretchenhawley.com/TheMSingLink

Send us a textDr. Luba Perry, Ph.D. is Co-Founder and CEO of ReConstruct Bio ( https://wyss.harvard.edu/technology/reconstruct/ ), an innovative venture emerging from Harvard's Wyss Institute ( https://wyss.harvard.edu/team/advanced-technology-team/luba-perry/ ), aimed at redefining the fields of medical reconstruction and aesthetics with an initial application of their groundbreaking technology on breast reconstruction and augmentation. With a multidisciplinary team of experts, the ReConstruct Bio team has developed the BioImplant—a living, bioengineered tissue created from the patient's own cells, to provide safer, more natural alternative to current standards, which are often associated with significant drawbacks and health concerns.Dr. Perry also serves as a Senior Scientist at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering working at the 3D Organ Engineering Initiative since 2018 and is leading a Wyss Validation Project aiming to fabricate vascularized functional tissues for transplantation. Her interest is in tissue and organ engineering, focusing on vascularization and implantation studies utilizing complex surgical models. Dr. Perry's background is in molecular biology, pharmacology, and biomedical engineering, with a Bachelor of Science - BS, Biology, Master of Science - MS, Molecular Pharmacology, and a Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Biotechnology, all from Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.  She also has industry experience in a vascular gene therapy company (MGVS, now VESSL Therapeutics).#LubaPerry #Harvard #WyssInstitute #ReConstructBio #Aesthetics #3DOrganEngineering #BreastReconstruction #BreastAugmentation #Vascularization #Innervation #Fat #AdiposeTissue #BreastImplants #Organogenesis #OrganEngineering #TissueEngineering #Bioengineering #Organs #Tissues #MolecularPharmacology #Breasts #Nipples#ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities #IraPastor #Podcast #Podcaster #ViralPodcast  #STEM #Innovation #Technology #Science #ResearchSupport the show

In this episode, Sharon is joined by Dr. Donald Ingber, Founding Director at Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. Dr. Ingber's commitment to following his passion has led him to countless medical and technological breakthroughs, including organ-chip technology. These incredible chips recreate the structure and function of human organs. Drugs can be administered through organ-chips so that blood impact can be monitored. Once more widely adopted, organ-chip testing will be able to replace animal testing. As Dr. Ingber shares, the results will surpass those of animal testing.The organ-chip technology already includes women's health models and holds great promise to revolutionize this under-invested area. Because animals, namely mice, do not have menstrual cycles, their biological environments are already skewed to test any women's health-related projects. Organ-chips are a great solution to close the data gap. Dr. Ingber shares two projects underway in partnership with the Gates Foundation: to create a cure for bacterial vaginosis and to create a non-hormonal contraceptive. Dr. Ingber highlights the importance of nurturing the business side of scientific breakthroughs so that innovations can reach patients. Twenty percent of Harvard's intellectual property comes out of the Wyss Institute, and both funding and mentorship play crucial roles in that success metric. Episode Outline(00:53) Meet Dr. Donald Inbger (02:11) Where Art Meets Science: Inside The Brilliant Mind of Dr. Ingber (07:08) What Is Organ-on-a-Chip Technology? (13:17) Reimaging Women's Health with Organ-Chips(21:11) Think Outside The Box: Bringing Innovation to Life Connect with SharonConnect with Sharon on LinkedIn: Sharon KedarLearn more about Innovate and Elevate innovateandelevatepodcast.comSubscribe to Innovate and Elevate on YouTubeJoin the newsletter to receive the latest episodes in your inbox: Innovate and Elevate NewsletterConnect with Dr. IngberFollow The Wyss Institute on LinkedInLearn more about Emulate, Inc.Additional ResourcesThe Wyss Institute The Wyss-Northpond Research And Innovation Alliance First rodent found with a human-like menstrual cycleThe White House Initiative on Women's Health ResearchThis podcast is produced by the women at The Wave Editing.

Modern biology is advancing by leaps and bounds, not only in understanding how organisms work, but in learning how to modify them in interesting ways. One exciting frontier is the study of tiny "robots" created from living molecules and cells, rather than metal and plastic. Gizem Gumuskaya, who works with previous guest Michael Levin, has created anthrobots, a new kind of structure made from living human cells. We talk about how that works, what they can do, and what future developments might bring.Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2024/04/29/274-gizem-gumuskaya-on-building-robots-from-human-cells/Support Mindscape on Patreon.Gimez Gumuskaya received her Ph.D. from Tufts University and the Harvard Wyss Institute for Biologically-Inspired Engineering. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Tufts University. She previously received a dual master's degree in Architecture and Synthetic Biology from MIT.Web siteGoogle scholar publicationsAnthrobots web siteSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

George Church, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, leads a large research group at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. A pioneer in the fields of personalized genomics and synthetic biology, he has co-founded over 50 biotech companies. In 2017, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. In this conversation, we discuss the importance of embracing outliers and taking calculated risks – it's not about never failing, it's about failing a million times a day. As Yogi Berra said, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it!”  George argues that you can change the world as long as you don't care who gets the credit. He recommends shooting for the stars – maybe you'll hit the moon. This episode was supported by Research Theory (researchtheory.org). For more information on Night Science, visit https://www.biomedcentral.com/collections/night-science .

Summary: Are you telling me a brainless protists has senses? You bet! Join Kiersten as she discusses slime mols senses.   For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean   Show Notes: “Slime Mould Senses” Warwick Life Sciences. https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/lifesci “Phototaxis and Photomorphogenesis in Physarum polycephalum Plasmodia”, by Th. Schereckenbach. Blue Light Effects in Biological Systems pp 463-475. Proceedings in Life Sciences, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-69767-8_51 “The Intelligence of Slime Mold,” by Hannah Gillespie, The Appalachian Voice. October 11, 2019. https://appvoices.org “Can Slime Molds Think?” By Nancy Walecki. Harvard Magazine, November-December 2021. https://www.harvardmagazine.com   Transcript  (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I'm Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we'll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating.  This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won't regret it. This is episode six of slime mold and today we're talking senses. I know it sounds a little odd to talk about senses in a life form that doesn't even have a brain but the fact that slime mold has senses is the sixth thing I like about it. To be honest, slime mold doesn't have all the traditional senses that we think about creatures having, such as sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell, but the senses they have are pretty mind-blowing for such a simple organism. Let's look at sight first. He-he, see what I did there? On boy! I'm stuck in a pun-cycle! Seriously, slime mold can't actually see, there is no evidence of an optical nerve or any kind of optical receptors in slime mold. They do have the ability to sense light. Most of the time, slime mold will avoid light. Blue light and UV light can damage DNA and the slime mold consistently moved away from these wavelengths. On the other end of the spectrum, red light influenced the movements of slime mold but to a lesser degree than blue and UV.  Light affects slime mold in various ways. In laboratory experiments, visible light has been shown to inhibit growth, induce a light avoidance response in mobile slime mold, control the change of plasmodial slime mold into resting structures, and trigger a formation of fruiting bodies. Movement influenced by light is called phototaxis. It looks like slime mold may not be able to see light in the traditional sense, but it defiantly has quite the impact on this organism. In the diet episode we already sniffed out slime molds sense of smell, but let's revisit it quickly here. Slime mold doesn't possess an olfactory system in the traditional sense. In mammalians we have a centralized olfactory system that concentrates the cells that collect scent. It's our nose! Slime mold does not have a nose, but it does have olfactory cells all over its form. So, it's kind of like one big nose. It is able to determine, by smell, which direction it wants to go to find high-quality food. It can, somehow make decisions based on the scents in the environment. Chemotaxis is movement influenced by chemical scents in the environment. Slime mold has this ability. In laboratory experiments, slime mold moved toward oats and paprika, both a good source of acceptable food, and moved away from black pepper and turmeric. Sense of smell often goes hand in hand with a sense of taste. Slime mold definitely behaves like it has a sense of taste as well as smell, because it avoids engulfing certain types of food.  Items high in salt, caffeine, and items with a high pH level are all commonly avoided by slime mold. Oats, sugar, and high protein foods all attract slime mold. Now, of course, these items all give off a chemical scent that we know the slime mold can sense, but it's reasonable to believe that it may also have a sense of taste. We'll have to wait for future research to see if it's true. Moving on to the sense of touch. There is really no way for use to truly understand what slime mold feels, but there is research that shows slime mold has preferences for certain surfaces. Like Goldilocks, slime mold wants a surface that is just right. They want something hard but not too hard. They will pick wood over a rock or over a loose patch of moss.  There is no evidence, yet, that slime mold is capable of hearing, but give it some time. I don't think we should rule anything out when it come to slime mold. We do know that slime mold employs mechanosensation to judge objects in the distance without coming into physical contact with them. Researchers at Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University presented challenges to the slime mold in a laboratory setting to see what it was capable of. They placed the slime mold in the center of a petrie dish and placed glass discs on opposite sides of the dish. One side held one disc and the other side held three discs. They turned off the lights and left the slime mold for approximately 12 hours. When they checked on the slime mold, it consistently traveled toward the side contains three discs. Now, they filmed the progression of the slime mold to make sure it hadn't  reached all the way out to each side touching the discs and then determined which way to go. The slime mold never touched any of the discs before it favored the side with the three discs.  To make this even crazier, the slime mold showed a preference for discs that took up more horizontal space than discs that were closer together or stacked on top of one another. They are still not sure how the slime mold is processing this information, but the presence of protein channels called TRP have been found in slime mold. The human brain uses these TRP channels to process mechanosensation input. Notice I said the human brain, and as we know by now, slime mold does not have a brain. So , how is slime mold processing the information that helps it determine the mass of objects on the horizon? I don't know about you, but each episode of this slime mold series amazes me. Slime mold senses is mu sixth favorite thing bout this under appreciated organism.   If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change.    Join me next week for another episode about slime mold.       (Piano Music plays)  This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.

Rapid advancements in technology and science are shaping a new era, with artificial intelligence and synthetic biology, or “syn-bio,” at the forefront. Heralded as the next big leap in science, syn-bio involves redesigning organisms for useful purposes by engineering them to have new abilities. The importance of syn-bio for people and our planet cannot be overstated. It offers novel ways of producing almost anything that human beings consume, from flavors and fabrics to foods and fuels. Today, the combination of syn-bio and AI – two of the most potent realms of science and technology – promises to unravel solutions to our most pressing challenges, including Earth's food and water, the environment and sustainability, bioenergy, and human health care.  One widely recognized trailblazer in syn-bio is Jim Collins, professor of medical engineering and science and professor of biological engineering at MIT. He is also a core founding faculty member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. In the latest episode of the “Ideas to Innovation Season 3” podcast from Clarivate, Collins helps listeners navigate through the exciting but complex landscape of syn-bio. He also discusses what it was like to be named a Citation Laureate 2023 for his pioneering work in synthetic gene circuits, which launched the field of syn-bio. Each year since 2002, the Citation Laureates program from Clarivate recognizes a small group of highly cited scientists and economists whose influence is comparable to that of past and future Nobel Prize winners. 

Dr. Ben Freedman and Dr. David Wu are the founder and advisor of Limax Biosciences, respectively. In this episode, they discuss their breakthrough innovation of novel biomaterials to transform healthcare, why collaboration and mentorship are so important, and how slugs inspired their work to the point of Ben being featured in a German TV show as the superhero Snail Man.  Guest links: https://www.limaxbiosciences.com/  Charity supported: Save the Children Interested in being a guest on the show or have feedback to share? Email us at podcast@velentium.com.  PRODUCTION CREDITS Host: Lindsey Dinneen Editor: Tim Oliphant Producer: Velentium   SHOW NOTES Episode 016 - Dr. Ben Freedman & Dr. David Wu Lindsey Dinneen: Hi, I'm Lindsey with Velentium and I'm talking with MedTech industry leaders on how they change lives for a better world. Diane Bouis: The inventions and technologies are fascinating and so are the people who work with them. Frank Jaskulke: There was a period of time where I realized, fundamentally, my job was to go hang out with really smart people that are saving lives and then do work that would help them save more lives. Diane Bouis: I got into the business to save lives and it is incredibly motivating to work with people who are in that same business, saving or improving lives. Duane Mancini: What better industry than where I get to wake up every day and just save people's lives. Lindsey Dinneen: These are extraordinary people doing extraordinary work, and this is The Leading Difference. Hello and welcome to the Leading Difference Podcast. I'm your host Lindsey, and I am very excited to introduce you to my guests today. They are Dr. Ben Freedman. He is the founder of Limax Biosciences, and along with him I am honored to have Dr. David Wu, who is an advisor for Limax Biosciences. Gentlemen, thank you so very much for joining me. I am so delighted that you're here. Thank you for being here. Dr. Ben Freedman: Thanks so much for having us. It's great to speak with you today. Lindsey Dinneen: Absolutely. Dr. David Wu: Thank you for having us. Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I would love if you all wouldn't mind starting by sharing just a little bit about yourself, some of your background, how you got into the industry, and what you're excited about right now. Maybe we can start with Ben, and then David, I'll turn it over to you after that. Dr. Ben Freedman: That sounds great. Yeah, so for me, I was always interested in science and technology in high school and prior to that point in time, and when I was looking at opportunities for what to major in as an undergrad, I came across bio-medical engineering, which at the time was really an emerging field that kind of blended a lot of the interests that I had between medicine and engineering and technology. And I got involved with a number of different courses. Had a number of different research experiences as an undergraduate and a lot of really fantastic dedicated research mentors that really pushed me to start to explore so many different areas within the field and industry and get a sense for all the different neat and exciting activities that were going on. And I really enjoyed research at the time, in the bioengineering space that led me to do a PhD in Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania where I was asking a little bit more basic science questions but had really strong interest in translation, in developing new therapies. So, after that point in time, I continued to do a postdoc at Harvard and the Wyss Institute where we started kind of combining a lot of my interests from my PhD in soft tissue biomechanics with developing new therapies to try to improve the healing process. And one of those therapies that we came across very early is that we realized that for material to deliver something, whether that be a some cells or other type of drug therapy, two tissues. It really needed to be coupled to tissues locally. So we started exploring this area bioadhesive, quickly realized that this was a really exciting area, not for just areas within the orthopedic space, but really many different types of diseases throughout the body. And it basically led us to kind of explore not only the academic path, but also a lot of the translational paths as well. That's really what's brought us here today. Lindsey Dinneen: Amazing. Thank you. David? Dr. David Wu: Hi everyone. So, I am right now a clinician scientist at Harvard University and what got me interested in the space, so during high school and an earlier part of undergrad, I was really fascinated by this idea of biotechnology and the fusion between the biomedical engineering, biology, as well as healthcare. So I did my undergraduate training in anatomy and cell biology at McGill University in Montreal. And during that experience, being fascinated as a student to learn more about research, I was involved in several different aspects of research, including stem cell biology, tissue engineering and immunology. Wanted to explore a little bit more about how these things were intertwined together. At the same time, through working with the local community on certain humanitarian initiatives and community initiatives, I got exposed to the field of dental medicine actually because I was interested in having a very direct impact on each individual patient's lives, on a daily basis, as well as learning more about research and how to advance the field. As a scientist, I managed to combine both. So during my dental school at McGill University, as well, I was involved in a project in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, looking at how we use bone marrow cell extract to help patients who have oral cancer and have undergone a radiation therapy. So as a result of these type of radiation therapy, patients would have their salivary gland destroyed, and that could lead to a lot of oral complications, including rampant caries, different types of infections, so making these patients lives very difficult. And exploring different regenerative therapies, and that introduced me to the field of tissue engineering. So, fast forward a couple of years in terms of graduation from dental school, I had the option of pursuing specialty training to become a specialist. And the specialty that I chose was the field of periodontology or periodontics. And for those of you who don't know what that entails, periodontology is basically a specialty treating gum diseases and building a good foundation of supporting structure, supporting your teeth. So your jawbone, your mandible, your gum. And right now what we do is a series of plastic surgery, a reconstructive surgery, to help patients with severe disease to build them back to a health condition to allow them to smile and chew. And part of that involves regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. So when I started at Harvard University, I had the privilege of meeting professor David Mooney, who was a world expert in tissue engineering and bio materials, and decided to start my doctoral thesis at the lab. And at the same time, that's how I met Benjamin Freedman, who was postdoc at the lab at the time, and we started collaborating on these projects, exploring the application of bio adhesives in different indications. And one of the indications we're exploring has to do with the cranial facial complex. So that kind of attracted me to the MedTech industry as well. Lindsey Dinneen: Wonderful. Yeah. And so I would love to hear then more about Limax? Dr. Ben Freedman: Yeah. A number of existing topical adhesives such as the super glues, the cyanoacrylate-based adhesives that are used commonly for superficial wound closure actually don't perform very well once you start using them in any sort of wet or actively bleeding environment that those types of glues become very rigid and don't bond well to the underlying tissue surface. A lot of existing tissue pieces are very weak. They're brittle upon any interaction with dynamically moving tissues or organs, compression, which is very common inside the body where a lot of these materials simply crumble upon any sort of mechanical stimulus that you place on them. That is coupled with a lot of the complications and challenges with the human body. There's a lot of wet tissues, a lot of tissues that are bleeding or exuding other fluids. And while these materials are really designed to try to prevent leaks and things like that, when they actually don't perform very well once they start to interact with wet surfaces. So for all these reasons they certainly demand for new materials. There's also, of course, a number of complications that have been reported for other types of bio adhesives, depending on their cross-linking mechanisms that include areas where they're toxic to underlying tissues. They can create all sorts of catastrophic embolization events and many other areas which are reported in the literature, which has really driven a big demand for developing new materials. But there's been a limitation in the field and kind of a breakthrough that we had made a number of years ago before I had started working in the lab with Dave Mooney at Harvard and the Wyss Institute. There was a discovery that was made for generating materials with really unique mechanical properties. And this was actually something that we didn't realize was gonna be as important for adhesives until recently. Because the reason why existing adhesives fail is that there's been a huge amount of efforts placed on generating strong adhesion to underlying tissue surfaces. But there has not been as big of an emphasis on generating materials that have strong cohesion such that the materials may be sticking strongly, but they have such weak matrix properties that they will fracture upon any sort of mechanical stimulus. And it turns out that you actually need really strong, cohesive properties first before you can generate really strong adhesive properties. So it turns out that a number of years ago, about 10 years ago at this point there was a discovery made at Harvard University where a new form of hydrogel was created. So hydrogel is a swollen polymer network. It's about 90% water, and It was discovered that if you created a dual interpenetrating network of two different types of polymers, one that dissipates energy and another that has high elasticity, that either one alone has relatively weak mechanical properties, but if you couple the two together, they interact synergistically to create a material with very high what we call material toughness. And these tough hydrogels have really enabled us to reimagine what we can do with a biomedical tissue. This same high toughness principle was later applied in around the year timeframe of 2016, 2017, when the bioadhesive were first developed in the Mooney group by a very talented postdoc, genuinely, who was now faculty at McGill. And this is around the time that I was starting in the lab and since then we've been working to, to create new versions within materials that have really interesting new properties, but it's really the synergistic interactions between this interpenetrating network with high toughness that's then added, coated with an adhesive layer that allows us to generate strong adhesion. And where all this came from is we were inspired by nature. We are coming from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard where we tried to turn to nature for new ideas to create new materials that have unique properties. So here we actually turned to the slug. And when slugs feel threatened, they secret a very sticky mucus that prevents 'em from being taken away by a predator. If you analyze the composition of this mucus, there's a whole series of slug slime researchers out there who have done a fantastic job quantifying some of the compositional and mechanical properties of this mucus, that it has actually very tough mechanical properties. You can stretch slug slime about 10 to 15 times its initial length without breaking, and if you analyze the composition of that same slime, it's about 90% water. It's a hydrogel, and it has a dual interpenetrating network of ions, proteins, and sugars that give it its unique mechanical properties. So, once we started realizing this, it, became clear that, hey, we have actually a material already in the lab that has really high material toughness, our tough hydrogel. Maybe we could actually couple that to tissues by applying some of the same principles of this interpenetrating network with a very amine rich bridging polymer, which we try to recapitulate in the lab. So we don't use any slug components. Full disclosure, no slug components. It's inspired by slugs and actually, Limax is Latin for "slug." So we have kept the slug theme all the way up to the creation of this entity. So it's something that we, hold very closely near and dear to our hearts. And something that we think has a really unique strategy to solve a very pressing, unmet clinical need. Lindsey Dinneen: Well that is amazing and I love the story behind it. And so I just have to ask, are you ever gonna have a snail mascot or is that a thing? Dr. Ben Freedman: That's a great question. That's a great question. But before we all laugh, we do integrate a little bit of the slug with our logo. So if you go back and look at the logo now, you'll probably notice there's a little component that does have some slug- like characteristics. And actually for fun back in 2017, a TV show based in Germany, which is essentially the Discovery Channel of Germany, came by to do a segment on our materials and they actually turned me into a snail superhero that they coined Snail Man. So, that is online someplace. But it's a fantastic snippet of what our materials can do and how they may have a, what we hope a great impact on healthcare. Lindsey Dinneen: That's amazing. I love that and I am definitely gonna have to Google that later because that's pretty fantastic. Well, I'm curious for both of you, are there any particular moments or a moment that really stands out to you as something that reinforced the idea to you that this is the right industry for you? Dr. David Wu: I think I can get started on this one. So my interest to get into the medtech industry is as a clinician, as a surgeon, you are doing a lot of surgery. You see a lot of different cases where you need a certain technology to make a treatment available to the patient in order to obtain the best results. But sometimes these treatment modalities or these technologies are not yet available. There's some maybe basic science research that demonstrated certain effects that are promising for clinical application, but in clinic, there's no such thing available. So my goal as a clinician, as a scientist, and entrepreneur is basically bridging the gap between benchtop research as well as clinic. And in order to translate this technology, I think the involvement of the medtech industry is so critical because it's a long, arduous journey to translate a basic science discovery all the way to benefit each individual patients. It involves a regulatory process. It involves manufacturing, design, marketing, so many different steps. So that was the main catalyst and my mission that drives me to not only doing these translational type of research, but also to building a strong line of, of products, of technologies to change how we treat patients and how patients benefit from these type of treatment in terms of quality of life, as well as successful outcome. Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, that's great, Ben? Dr. Ben Freedman: And for me it was, I don't know, going back to when I was really young. When I was in fourth grade, I think I, I had a kind of this toy robot that I was trying to build and the instructions kind of had a relatively basic design of the wrist of the robot. So it was pretty much fully rigid. The hand could open and close, but it couldn't exhibit the other types of range of motion that our human wrist could have. So I added some other motors and gadgets and things like that to kind of re-engineer the wrist. I think maybe that was an early sign that I was I was going to be a bioengineer cuz I was kind of curious to innovate, curious to try to develop new solutions that could better represent the actual human condition. And through that in a number of different projects that had been going on for a number of years, well before PhD undergrad projects, early on I took a technical entrepreneurship course. Kind of got involved with what would go into a business plan relatively early, got the chance to enter some competitions very early, which were great learning experiences and kind of left me hungry for more. And I think all these experiences, have kind of added up where, I definitely wanna be an innovator. I want to inspire new scientists, train new students, and develop new solutions for really pressing unmet needs that exist. I think, talking to so many folks, clinicians in this space, having family members that have also experienced a number of these terrible diseases and disorders that there's certainly so much work that still needs to be done and not enough folks out there developing new solutions here as we're running out of time to, to do all these things. So, certainly feel kind of the time pressure to develop new and an important solutions. And really to try to think big. I think that's really the most exciting part is to have a problem and really develop a solution that can really address that, that specific problem in the best possible way. Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So both of you have had really interesting career paths that have led you to where you are today, and it sounds like leadership has been a winding thread through various different avenues for you both. So, I'm curious, two things. One is what does leadership mean to you? And then the second thing would be what advice would you have for someone who might be interested in doing something similar to what you're doing or is looking for a leadership role within the medtech industry? So whoever would love to take that, I'd just be curious to know your thoughts. Dr. David Wu: Yeah, I can start. I think the most important part of leadership is finding a common mission and enabling people on your team to achieve that common mission together, whether it is teaching them the skills to do so or encouraging them. I think just bring everybody to achieve a same mission, the common mission, the common goal. For example, in the MedTech industry, it could be developing a new biomedical device to, to solve a particular technical or surgical issue in order to improve treatment outcome for a specific population. It could even be broader, right? Tackle aging or tackle specific type of cancer. So, having the ability to really gathering the team and to inspiring every individual team member, who are from different backgrounds, who have different priorities and different level of life experiences and skills. And how do you find the common denominator and how do you motivate them? I think that's the key to success to leadership. Dr. Ben Freedman: And I think just to add to that, there's certainly different types of leaders, different types of leadership positions, even within a single organization. I think just finding the right people that can help build that positive work environment, that can help motivate a group and inspire group to go after a common goal. And I think if you can get everybody on board with not only the mission, but but really have the drive to where it doesn't necessarily feel like work. It feels like everybody's going after something that's gonna be extremely impactful. You know, award credit when credit is due. All these things are really important characteristics of what I think goes into making somebody be a good leader. Certainly lots of things that you could learn in a class, but also a lot of it is practice and learning how to manage a lot of things going on at the same time, communicating really effectively, really recognizing accomplishments and achievements for those in the team. And being organized and focused to define goals that are within reach are all the different kind of important qualities that will go into being a successful leader. I think, we're relatively both early in our careers. So I think we're still trying to learn some of the key things here and in talking to some of our mentors about how they may handle situations and learning from others. There's always things to learn in this space to further advance our own careers. Lindsey Dinneen: Of course. And what about any advice you might have for somebody who's interested in, again, either doing something similar or obtaining a leadership role, just maybe somebody who's even earlier on in their career. What would you say to them? Dr. Ben Freedman: So, I mean, I think there's a number of things here. A number of different little key bits of advice. Certainly, people will say that you need a lot of grit, you need to work hard, you need to be determined. It's easy to say those things, but it's also, you have to practice going through those different things too, where not every day's going to be winning a competition, where there's gonna be a lot of failure. There's gonna be a lot of unanswered questions. There's gonna be a lot of things where it may not feel like you're making a huge amount of progress. You might be making a little bit of progress. You might be taking steps forward, you might be taking steps backward. But hopefully, you just have to keep your eye on the goal. And I think a lot of these skill sets with grit and determination and, not just working hard but working smart. Being really efficient with hours and time are some of the things that we've developed during this postgraduate, graduate training which, I think has been helpful probably for us as young, aspiring scientists and entrepreneurs to really have an eye on where things can go. Appreciate that it's not necessarily a straight line and things can go in all sorts of directions. But just to, try to keep a focus and we heard an analogy last night, we were at the Resolve Mass Challenge event and taking place in Boston. One of the keynotes was talking about thinking about approaching problems with kind of a bandpass filter. Filtering out the really good things and how that might affect you and the really bad. So just to keep kind of a more moderate response to a lot of the different things that are coming. And I think, part of that is true. Keep a steady pace and surround yourself with folks that, that share in your, mission and that can hear your stresses and successes and you know, just surround yourself with the people, great people and that can push you to do new things. And I think that's really an important part for folks in this industry and other industries. Where you're not doing this in a silo. I heard once that, the hardest job of somebody in these, top leadership positions, whether that be CEO or academic professors is not necessarily the company, or the lab or the whatever. It's managing your own mental health. And I think, that's certainly, an important part and something that we all have to work toward. And I think if you do that in addition to doing really good science and really good in innovative technology development, hopefully that will be something that leads to success, but it's not an easy path. It's a lot of factors that can be out of your control as well, depending on industry dynamics and people, et cetera. But until that point we're certainly in this interesting phase of great determination and surrounding ourselves with fantastic people that, that share in our vision. Lindsey Dinneen: Absolutely. David, anything to add to that? Dr. David Wu: Yes, I think one of the advice to, to any young folks either in the industry, in academia or in clinical practice is be open-minded. There's a lot of things we currently don't know. So having the foresight to network within your own industry, but also in adjacent industries. And really exploring what are the different innovations, the different discoveries going on, and how to cross pollinate and how to collaborate with each other because we have to acknowledge that we only have so much time and so much expertise in, in our domain. So having the opportunity to collaborate with people outside of our immediate field, that could be really beneficial. A second point I'd like to touch on is a mentorship. As young, aspiring leaders and inventors in the industry, entrepreneurs, it's important to seek mentorship and to learn from those veterans who have been there, done that. They have a lot of advice to share. How did they start their own journey? So by talking to these different mentors and really building your core group of mentors, or for example, there's one particular term in the literature I'd like to refer to as your "personal board advisors." So identify these people that play a certain role in your own growth, in your own development that could really expand your horizons in terms of knowledge as well as network. And the third point I'd like to touch about is dream big and also act on it. And recently, I heard somebody in my network talk about this concept. When opportunities come knocking on your door, you gotta be ready and you gotta be there to open that door. So, when you have a dream, you're not gonna be able to foresee what's gonna be coming towards you next year or the year after. But what you can do is to build a set of skill, to build a network within the industry and to understand what are some key areas of opportunity and aligning yourself up for that. And when you're presented with these opportunities, see those opportunities. Lindsey Dinneen: Absolutely. Yeah, that is great advice. Thank you very much both of you for that. I think you've touched on something that is really important and kind of a running theme of the interviews I've done so far is the concept that there are many avenues to a dream, and if you're open and you're willing to explore the opportunities that come your way, whether or not you initially thought that's how it would work out, I mean it leads people to some pretty amazing opportunities and experiences if you're willing to be open and you're willing to be humble enough to know that you're gonna be learning and growing your whole life. Well, on a different note, for both of you, just a fun question. Imagine someone were to offer you a million dollars to teach a masterclass on anything you want, doesn't have to be in your industry, but it could. What would you choose to teach and why? Dr. David Wu: If I were offered an opportunity to teach a masterclass, and this might be coming from a totally different angle, but I would teach the art of Japanese sushi and sashimi making. And part of the reason why is first, it's full of art and history. And as the culinary arts is embedded in history. There's also a lot of knowledge you need to know and a lot of training. So just out of interest, for background knowledge, a Japanese chef for a Japanese sushi chef, when they undergo through training, it takes them about three years just preparing the rice for the sushi. And that is the amount of detail, technical knowledge, repetition, and perseverance. And once they're passed onto that stage, they move on to, to teach 'em how to make it a piece of omelet or egg. And that process also takes years. So to really become a master and to hone your skill to reach that level of master sushi chef it takes, 20, 30, even 40 years. And one of the most famous chef in Japan actually is well into his eighties and still perfecting his craft. And that is an analogy to my specialty, which is periodontal surgery. We do a lot of plastic surgery and a lot of the techniques in plastic surgery is very refined. You need to have fine control of the surgical blade. You need to master different levels and tiers of techniques. So that's kind of in parallel to, to the art of sushi making. So if I was offered a million dollars, I will definitely teach a class on these different aspects. Lindsey Dinneen: I love it. Ben? Dr. Ben Freedman: Yeah. So before I was-- I guess in parallel, actually, while I was doing science, I had a side job of teaching sailing. I grew up doing some water sports and got really passionate about teaching sailing and not just competitive sailboat racing, but I just loved the whole concept of working with somebody that's never been on the water, may have just learned how to swim and teaching them an entirely different skillset. It's not necessarily like walking or riding a bike, it's something where there's a lot of controls. You're on a boat that's floating and, and the ocean, there's lines to pull, there's ways you have to maintain your balance. All these things that, that go into place so that the boat goes forward, doesn't go in circles and you don't flip the thing over. And I've had such an enjoyable time working with younger students, adults. I volunteered for a number of years for the Sailing Special Olympics, working with athletes of all different backgrounds that, I would, in a heartbeat, love to build a, a whole career out of sailing. Probably not even pay me to do it. I would, certainly do it for free just because it's been such a strong passion of mine over the years. I think there's a lot of similarities to sailing a boat and doing a lot of things in life, whether that be entrepreneurship or learning a new skill or working harder in a class or doing a PhD, et cetera. A lot of times with sailing, it's not like driving a motor boat where you can go from point A to point B, you have to zigzag through the wind. You have waves, you have unintended obstacles that you'll hit, and you have to sometimes adapt on the fly. You can't predict what the weather is going to be or what might be out on the water. And I think that certainly resonates closely with me and the different activities that I'm doing in academia and the industry. And something which I think is true for a lot of us in life. So, without a doubt, I would teach a masterclass in sailing and I would do it for free. Lindsey Dinneen: Well, we could put the million dollars towards your business. How about that? Dr. Ben Freedman: Sounds good. Lindsey Dinneen: Or a cause that you care about? One of the two. Dr. Ben Freedman: Perfect. Lindsey Dinneen: Oh, amazing. That is awesome. Thank you both for that. What is one thing that you wish to be remembered for after you leave this world? Dr. Ben Freedman: I think certainly, we're in this area because we certainly wanna make a difference and we don't wanna necessarily have any regrets of not going after something that could be, a chance to improve healthcare, improve our environment, improve world peace, et cetera. So, I think that we wanna be remembered as or at least I want be remembered as something that goes after challenging problems that are facing the world, going after them in ways that are, of course ethical and, creating a great community and, and group along the way. I'm also really passionate about training folks and enabling them to be successful at whatever they do and solve other really important pressing problems that we're facing. Hoping to make a mark in many different areas I'm gonna hopefully be remembered for those things and hopefully they do result in some new novel device. But if they don't, the way that we're going about it, just wanting to do that in the best possible way that enables others to have a great impact on the world. Dr. David Wu: And as for me in terms of one thing I wanna be remembered for, as a clinician and a scientist, and I teach a lot students along the way, and I had a lot of mentors who have played this role in my life. I want to be remembered as somebody who really encouraged people to pursue their dreams and provided them with concrete advice, resources, and opportunities so they can find a fulfilling career-- whether it is in the medtech industry developing new devices to help patients, or whether it is to become a scientist to advance their research project or become becoming a clinicians to treat patients-- to help these trainees and students find the ideal career path and the ideal sense of fulfillment for themselves. So as a mentor and as a leader, that's one thing I wanna be remembered for. Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Those are great answers. Thank you. And then my final question is, what is one thing that makes you smile every time you see or think about it? Dr. Ben Freedman: Oh, right now the number one thing that makes me smile-- we just had a our first child a few months ago. And seeing our baby smiling or crying makes me smile every single time. Lindsey Dinneen: Aw, congratulations. That's wonderful. Dr. David Wu: And for me, also in terms of you were talking about personal milestones. So this past summer I just got married to my wife. We've been dating for almost 11 years now. So it's a long time coming. And just being able to spend time together, whether talking about our future or going on new adventures, exploring different parts of the world, that's something that makes me smile. Lindsey Dinneen: Those are great answers. Well and clearly, great reasons to smile, so I'm so glad to hear about those things. Dr. David Wu: I'm smiling right now. Lindsey Dinneen: I love it. Well, I just wanna thank you both so, so very much for your time today. We are very honored to be making a donation on your behalf as a thank you for your time today to Save the Children, which works to end the cycle of poverty by ensuring communities have the resources to provide children with a healthy, educational and safe environment. I am truly inspired by what you all are doing and the different solutions that you are developing for a whole variety of different uses. And thank you for your passion and your drive to change lives for a better world. I just wish you both massive, continued success as you go along your paths, and thank you, thank you for being here. And thank you so much to our listeners for tuning in and if you're feeling as inspired as I am right now, I love it if you'd share this episode with a colleague or two and we will catch you next time.  The Leading Difference podcast is brought to you by Velentium. Velentium is a contract design and manufacturing firm specializing in the development, production and post-market support of diagnostic and therapeutic active medical devices, including implantables and wearables for neuromodulation and other class three indications. Velentium's core competencies include electrical design, mechanical design, embedded software, mobile apps, contract manufacturing, embedded cybersecurity, OT cybersecurity, systems engineering, human factors and usability, and automated test systems. Velentium works with clients worldwide from startups seeking seed funding to established Fortune 100 companies. Visit velentium.com to explore your next step in medical device development.

Omar Ali is the Senior Director of Research at Lyell Immunopharma. Omar discusses leadership lessons he's picked up across 2 decades working at the intersection of bioengineering and drug development. Starting his first company during grad school at Harvard. Afterwards spending ~7 years at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. Setting up his second startup, Immulus, focused on immune cell expansion. That was acquired by Lyell. Omar is an expert in a wide-range of fields from biomaterials and immunotherapy to drug deliver, cancer vaccines, and chemistry; however, his superpower is managing interdisciplinary teams and leadership.

Episode Summary:Technologies like next-generation sequencing allow us to understand which RNA transcripts and proteins are expressed in biological tissues. However, it's often equally important to understand how cells or molecules are positioned relative to one another! Whether it be a cell changing its shape, an organelle ramping up a metabolic process, or a DNA molecule traveling across the nucleus, understanding spatial context is critical. Current approaches for spatial sequencing are limited by cost, complicated equipment, sample damage, or low resolution. Recognizing this challenge, Josie and team developed Light-seq, a cheap and accessible method to combine sequencing and imaging in intact biological samples. Not only is the method inexpensive, but Light-seq can also achieve unprecedented spatial resolution by using light to add genetic barcodes to any RNA, allowing scientists to determine exactly where sequencing should occur with extreme precision. By helping researchers to understand spatial context, Light-seq-driven insights may illuminate cancer, neurodegeneration, and autoimmunity.Episode Notes:About the AuthorFollowing her lifelong passion for computer programming, Josie studied Computer Science at Caltech and worked as a software engineering intern at Google. At Caltech, a biomolecular computation course introduced her to the field of biomolecular programming. Josie was quickly excited about the intersection of computers and biology and its potential to bring about positive change in the world. She pursued this interest in her graduate studies in the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard, where – as first a postdoctoral fellow, and then the Technology Development Fellow – she developed platform technologies for DNA-based imaging and sequencing assays.Key Takeaways Next-generation sequencing is a powerful technology to read the transcriptomic state of biological tissues by surveying the RNA transcripts present.However, it's important to understand not only what is being expressed but where this expression occurs! The spatial arrangement, structure, and interactions between molecules are critical to define the functions of biological systems.By linking imaging with -omics profiling, the field of spatial biology seeks to understand molecules like RNAs in their 2D and 3D contexts.Unfortunately, currently available spatial transcriptomics methods are limited in their ability to select individual cells with complex morphologies, require expensive instrumentation or complex microfluidics setups to the tune of several $100K, and often damage the samples.Further, rare cells are often missed due to lower sequencing throughput, even though they may be critical for biological activity.Recognizing this challenge, Josie and her collaborators developed Light-seq, a new, cheap, and accessible approach for single-cell spatial indexing and sequencing of intact biological samples.Using light-controlled nucleotide crosslinking chemistry, Light-seq can correlate multi-dimensional and high-resolution cellular phenotypes – like morphology, protein markers, spatial organization) – to transcriptomic profiles across diverse sample types.In particular, using the biological equivalent of photolithography, Light-seq can add genetic barcodes to any RNA by shining light on it, allowing scientists to control exactly where sequencing should occur with extreme precision – up to the subcellular level.Light-seq can operate directly on the sample: the method does not require cellular dissociation, microfluidic separation/sorting, or custom capture substrates or pre-patterned slides.Samples used for Light-seq remain intact for downstream analysis post-sequencing.Josie evaluated Light-seq on mouse retinal sections to barcode three different cell layers and study the rare dopaminergic amacrine cells (DACs).Impact Josie created a cheap, accessible, and powerful tool for scientists to perform spatial sequencing at unprecedented resolution without requiring expensive or complicated setups.By enabling new advances in spatial biology, Light-seq has the potential to help biologists discover biomarkers for disease, measure on and off target effects of therapeutic candidates, and illuminate poorly understood biological mechanisms where understanding spatial context makes all the difference.Author: Josie KishiPaper: Light-Seq: Light-directed in situ barcoding of biomolecules in fixed cells and tissues for spatially indexed sequencing

Daniel Levner, Ph.D.,  joins Hannah to discuss Organ-chip technology from Emulate. Levner explains the "origin story" of organ-on-chip technology, the research applications and how this evolving technology can emulate human biology. Also, Levner shares what the future holds for this technology and how it will allow researchers to develop new solutions.  To learn more about Emulate, visit: https://emulatebio.com/About Daniel Levner, Ph.D.:Levner is the Chief Technology Officer at Emulate. He joined the Emulate founding team during his role as a Senior Staff Scientist with the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. There, he led the advanced engineering team responsible for developing the Emulate Organ-Chips platform and played a key leadership role formulating innovative approaches for bridging biologists, engineers and business stakeholders. Levner received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University as well as an MS in aeronautics and astronautics, also from Stanford. He has authored numerous publications and more than 70 issued and pending US patents.Stay connected with SLAS:Online at www.slas.orgFacebookTwitter @SLAS_OrgLinkedInInstagram @slas_orgYouTubeAbout SLAS:SLAS (Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening) is an international professional society of academic, industry and government life sciences researchers and the developers and providers of laboratory automation technology. The SLAS mission is to bring together researchers in academia, industry and government to advance life sciences discovery and technology via education, knowledge exchange and global community building.  For more information about SLAS, visit www.slas.org.SLAS publishes two peer-reviewed and MEDLINE-indexed scientific journals, SLAS Discovery and SLAS Technology. For more information about SLAS and its journals, visit www.slas.org/publications.Upcoming SLAS Events:SLAS 2022 Americas Sample Management SymposiumRegistration is now open for the 2022 AI Data Pipelines for Life Sciences Symposium in Seattle, WA, September 26-27.This two-day symposium will allow participants to explore how AI data pipelines are integrated into the life sciences. Attendees will learn about MLOPS, applications, techniques, and architectures of data and their uses in the life sciences. The SLAS 2022 Bio Entrepreneurship Symposium will allow emerging bio entrepreneurs, start-up companies, academics and those considering bio-entrepreneurship to explore the start-up ecosystem. Register by visiting: https://www.slas.org/events-calendar/slas-2022-bio-entrepreneurship-symposium/attend/register/

Join us with Dr. Ben Bronstein and Travis Wilson from Stealth Peptides. Stealth Peptides is a private biotech company responsible for the development of innovative mitochondrial therapeutics, including the investigational new drug "Bendavia." Bendavia has been studied in animals and is currently in Phase 2 studies in patients with cardiovascular and kidney diseases. Bendavia appears to target mitochondria and may preserve cellular ATP levels and prevent pathological reactive oxygen species formation in disease. Please join us to learn more about this exciting new drug and future possibilities for use of Bendavia by children and adults with mitochondrial disease. About The Speaker Travis Wilson is the president and CEO of Stealth Peptides Incorporated, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing a novel class of mitochondria-targeted peptide therapeutics for treatment of ophthalmic and orphan diseases. Stealth Peptides’ lead compound in Phase 2 development, Bendavia, maintains mitochondrial bioenergetics including membrane potential and respiration under pathological conditions. Bendavia has been shown to improve cellular ATP levels in disease, and prevent pathological reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation, thereby improving compromised cardiac, renal and skeletal muscle function. Travis also serves as a director on several boards for preclinical and clinical stage companies, providing operational and management oversight to a portfolio of companies developing drugs across a broad spectrum of therapeutic focus, including oncology, cardiology and critical care. Travis is a member of the life science investment team at the Morningside Group, a private investment group. Ben Bronstein is the Vice President of Clinical Development at Stealth Peptides Incorporated, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing a novel class of mitochondria-targeted peptide therapeutics for treatment of ophthalmic and orphan diseases. In addition to his role with Stealth Peptides, Ben is a Visiting Scholar at the Wyss Institute of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. A board certified pathologist, Ben began his professional career on the staff of the Massachusetts General Hospital and on the faculty of Harvard Medical School. He has spent the past 25 years in entrepreneurial roles at life science firms and in venture capital. Ben has founded or held senior management positions at several venture-backed life science firms, including BioSurface Technology (regenerative medicine), Peptimmune (immunotherapeutics), Vidus Ocular (glaucoma device) and Neuron Systems (dry AMD). Most recently Ben has served as a founder and senior vice president of Access BridgeGap Ventures, the life science investment unit of Access Industries, Inc. Ben is also a member of the Weill Cornell Medical College Faculty Industry Council and the Oversight Committee of the Coulter Translational Partnership program in Biomedical Engineering at Boston University.

Samir Mitragotri is the Hiller Professor of Bioengineering and Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering. Samir is an elected member of the National Academies of Engineering and Medicine, and elected fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academy of Inventors, the Controlled Release Society, the Biomedical Engineering Society, and the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists. He is a Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher. He serves on the editorial boards of several journals and currently serves as the founding Editor-in-Chief of Bioengineering and Translational Medicine.Samir has made groundbreaking contributions to the field of biological barriers and drug delivery systems. His research, which is focused on the fundamental understanding of biological barriers, has led to the development of new materials and technologies for diagnosis and treatment of various ailments including diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, skin conditions and infections. Many of his technologies have advanced to human clinical studies and products. Samir's key technical contributions include the development of novel transdermal and oral delivery systems. Specifically in transdermal drug delivery, Samir has established a fundamental knowledgebase of transport properties of skin and has pioneered numerous technologies including low-frequency ultrasound, pulsed microjet injector, high throughput screening (INSIGHT), in situ hydrogels and ionic liquids for transdermal drug delivery. He has also developed ionic liquid-based technologies for oral delivery of insulin, monoclonal antibodies and other biologics. Samir has also developed unique bio-inspired nanoparticles that hitchhike on circulatory cells to avoid immune clearance and allow targeted delivery to tissues.Samir is the author of more than 400 publications in the area of drug delivery and biomaterials, has given close to 500 invited and contributed presentations worldwide, and is an inventor on more than 200 pending or issued patents. He is a co-founder of several companies that are developing therapeutic or diagnostic products based on his inventions.Thank you for listening!BIOS (@BIOS_Community) unites a community of Life Science innovators dedicated to driving patient impact. Alix Ventures (@AlixVentures) is a San Francisco based venture capital firm supporting early stage Life Science startups engineering biology to create radical advances in human health.Music: Danger Storm by Kevin MacLeod (link & license)

Don Ingber is the Founding Director of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering @ Harvard University, the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School and the Vascular Biology Program at Boston Children's Hospital, and Professor of Bioengineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He received his B.A., M.A., M.Phil., M.D. and Ph.D. from Yale University.Ingber is a pioneer in the field of biologically inspired engineering, and at the Wyss Institute, he currently leads scientific and engineering teams that cross a broad range of disciplines to develop breakthrough bio-inspired technologies to advance healthcare and to improve sustainability. His work has led to major advances in mechanobiology, cell structure, tumor angiogenesis, tissue engineering, systems biology, nanobiotechnology and translational medicine. Through his work, Prof. Ingber also has helped to break down boundaries between science, art and design.Ingber has authored more than 500 publications and almost 200 patents, founded 7 companies, and has presented over 550 plenary presentations and invited lectures world-wide. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Medicine, National Academy of Inventors, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Prof. Ingber has been the scientific founder of seven companies: Neomorphics, Tensegra, Boa Biomedical, FreeFlow Medical Devices, Unravel Bio, StataDx, and Emulate.Thank you for listening!BIOS (@BIOS_Community) unites a community of Life Science innovators dedicated to driving patient impact. Alix Ventures (@AlixVentures) is a San Francisco based venture capital firm supporting early stage Life Science startups engineering biology to create radical advances in human health.Music: Danger Storm by Kevin MacLeod (link & license)

The US scientists at University of Vermont, Tufts University and Harvard University's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering who created the first living robots say the life forms, known as xenobots, can now reproduce in a way not seen in plants and animals. We just had to talk about that. A They smoke a Plasencia Alma Fuerte Sisto2 with some El Dorado 12 Year old rum. https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/29/americas/xenobots-self-replicating-robots-scn/index.html https://cigarsliquorandmore.com/  

This week's podcast is all about the future of 3D IC tools and methodologies and the newest advancement in xenobot research. Vinay Patwardhan (Cadence Design Systems) and I discuss the challenges engineers experience when designing 3D chips, where existing 3D-IC tools and methodologies fall short, and what type of analysis we need for a 3D stack system as opposed to a standard chip design. Also this week, I investigate how a group of researchers from the University of Vermont, Tufts University, and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have discovered a brand new form of biological reproduction and how they used this new discovery to create the world's first self-replicating living robots.  

You know those people who say you can't change tissue? Well I'm I am absolutely geeked to have Dr Bo Ri Seo as my guest today and she's going to explain otherwise. She is the lead writer on of the most exciting papers I've read this year. I talked about on Episode 30, and now she's here on BodyTalk. You're going to love what she has to say! Massage doesn't just make muscles feel better, it makes them heal faster and stronger Dr. Bo Ri Seo is a biomedical engineer who has been studying mechanobiology and mechanotherapy to develop therapeutic strategies for cancer and tissue regeneration. Her research interests are in tissue microenvironment engineering and regenerative immunoengineering. Her recent work has focused on understanding the immunoregulatory roles of mechanical loading on improving skeletal muscle regeneration as well as the impacts of physicochemical cues in stem cell division at a single cell level as a postdoctoral research fellow at Dr. David Mooney's group at Harvard University and Wyss Institute of Biologically Inspired Engineering. Prior to joining Mooney group at Harvard, Dr. Seo received her bachelor's degree from Korea University in Seoul, South Korea, and obtained her doctoral degree under the mentorship of Dr. Claudia Fischbach in Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University. She recently joined Takeda as research scientist. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/david-lesondak/message

Raspberries, ellagic acid reveal benefits in two studies Oregon State University, October 1, 2021.    Articles that appeared recently in the Journal of Berry Research report that raspberries and compounds present in the fruit could help support healthy body mass and motor function, including balance, coordination and strength.   In one study, Neil Shay and colleagues at Oregon State University fed mice a high fat, high sugar diet plus one of the following: raspberry juice concentrate, raspberry puree concentrate, raspberry fruit powder, raspberry seed extract, ellagic acid (a polyphenol that occurs in a relatively high amount in raspberries), raspberry ketone, or a combination of raspberry ketone and ellagic acid. Additional groups of animals received a high fat, high sugar diet alone or a low fat diet.   While mice that received the high fat and sugar diet alone experienced a significant increase in body mass, the addition of raspberry juice concentrate, raspberry puree concentrate or ellagic acid plus raspberry ketone helped prevent this effect. Of note, mice that received raspberry juice concentrate experienced gains similar to those of animals given a low fat diet. "We hope that the findings from this study can help guide the design of future clinical trials," Dr Shay stated.   In another study, Barbara Shukitt-Hale, PhD, and her associates at Tufts University's Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging gave 19 month old rats a control diet or a diet enhanced with raspberry extract for 11 weeks. Psychomotor behavior was assessed during week 7 and cognitive testing was conducted during weeks 9-10.   Animals that received raspberry performed better on psychomotor coordination and balance, and had better muscle tone, strength and stamina than those that received a control diet. "These results may have important implications for healthy aging," stated Dr Shukitt-Hale. "While further research in humans is necessary, animal model studies are helpful in identifying deficits associated with normal aging."       Massage doesn't just make muscles feel better, it makes them heal faster and stronger Harvard University, October 6, 2021 Massage has been used to treat sore, injured muscles for more than 3,000 years, and today many athletes swear by massage guns to rehabilitate their bodies. But other than making people feel good, do these "mechanotherapies" actually improve healing after severe injury? According to a new study from researchers at Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), the answer is "yes." Using a custom-designed robotic system to deliver consistent and tunable compressive forces to mice's leg muscles, the team found that this mechanical loading (ML) rapidly clears immune cells called neutrophils out of severely injured muscle tissue. This process also removed inflammatory cytokinesreleased by neutrophils from the muscles, enhancing the process of muscle fiber regeneration. The research is published in Science Translational Medicine. "Lots of people have been trying to study the beneficial effects of massage and other mechanotherapies on the body, but up to this point it hadn't been done in a systematic, reproducible way. Our work shows a very clear connection between mechanical stimulation and immune function. This has promise for regenerating a wide variety of tissues including bone, tendon, hair, and skin, and can also be used in patients with diseases that prevent the use of drug-based interventions," said first author Bo Ri Seo, Ph.D., who is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of Core Faculty member Dave Mooney, Ph.D. at the Wyss Institute and SEAS. Seo and her coauthors started exploring the effects of mechanotherapy on injured tissues in mice several years ago, and found that it doubled the rate of muscle regeneration and reduced tissue scarring over the course of two weeks. Excited by the idea that mechanical stimulation alone can foster regeneration and enhance muscle function, the team decided to probe more deeply into exactly how that process worked in the body, and to figure out what parameters would maximize healing. They teamed up with soft robotics experts in the Harvard Biodesign Lab, led by Wyss Associate Faculty member Conor Walsh, Ph.D., to create a small device that used sensors and actuators to monitor and control the force applied to the limb of a mouse. " The device we created allows us to precisely control parameters like the amount and frequency of force applied, enabling a much more systematic approach to understanding tissue healing than would be possible with a manual approach," said co-second author Christopher Payne, Ph.D., a former Postdoctoral Fellow at the Wyss Institute and the Harvard Biodesign Lab who is now a Robotics Engineer at Viam, Inc.  Once the device was ready, the team experimented with applying force to mice's leg muscles via a soft silicone tip and used ultrasound to get a look at what happened to the tissue in response. They observed that the muscles experienced a strain of between 10-40%, confirming that the tissues were experiencing mechanical force. They also used those ultrasound imaging data to develop and validate a computational model that could predict the amount of tissue strain under different loading forces. They then applied consistent, repeated force to injured muscles for 14 days. While both treated and untreated muscles displayed a reduction in the amount of damaged muscle fibers, the reduction was more pronounced and the cross-sectional area of the fibers was larger in the treated muscle, indicating that treatment had led to greater repair and strength recovery. The greater the force applied during treatment, the stronger the injured muscles became, confirming that mechanotherapy improves muscle recovery after injury. But how? Evicting neutrophils to enhance regeneration To answer that question, the scientists performed a detailed biological assessment, analyzing a wide range of inflammation-related factors called cytokines and chemokines in untreated vs. treated muscles. A subset of cytokines was dramatically lower in treated muscles after three days of mechanotherapy, and these cytokines are associated with the movement of immune cells called neutrophils, which play many roles in the inflammation process. Treated muscles also had fewer neutrophils in their tissue than untreated muscles, suggesting that the reduction in cytokines that attract them had caused the decrease in neutrophil infiltration. The team had a hunch that the force applied to the muscle by the mechanotherapy effectively squeezed the neutrophils and cytokines out of the injured tissue. They confirmed this theory by injecting fluorescent molecules into the muscles and observing that the movement of the molecules was more significant with force application, supporting the idea that it helped to flush out the muscle tissue. To pick apart what effect the neutrophils and their associated cytokines have on regenerating muscle fibers, the scientists performed in vitro studies in which they grew muscle progenitor cells (MPCs) in a medium in which neutrophils had previously been grown. They found that the number of MPCs increased, but the rate at which they differentiated (developed into other cell types) decreased, suggesting that neutrophil-secreted factors stimulate the growth of muscle cells, but the prolonged presence of those factors impairs the production of new muscle fibers. "Neutrophils are known to kill and clear out pathogens and damaged tissue, but in this study we identified their direct impacts on muscle progenitor cell behaviors," said co-second author Stephanie McNamara, a former Post-Graduate Fellow at the Wyss Institute who is now an M.D.-Ph.D. student at Harvard Medical School (HMS). "While the inflammatory response is important for regeneration in the initial stages of healing, it is equally important that inflammation is quickly resolved to enable the regenerative processes to run its full course." Seo and her colleagues then turned back to their in vivo model and analyzed the types of muscle fibers in the treated vs. untreated mice 14 days after injury. They found that type IIX fibers were prevalent in healthy muscle and treated muscle, but untreated injured muscle contained smaller numbers of type IIX fibers and increased numbers of type IIA fibers. This difference explained the enlarged fiber size and greater force production of treated muscles, as IIX fibers produce more force than IIA fibers. Finally, the team homed in on the optimal amount of time for neutrophil presence in injured muscle by depleting neutrophils in the mice on the third day after injury. The treated mice's muscles showed larger fiber size and greater strength recovery than those in untreated mice, confirming that while neutrophils are necessary in the earliest stages of injury recovery, getting them out of the injury site early leads to improved muscle regeneration. "These findings are remarkable because they indicate that we can influence the function of the body's immune system in a drug-free, non-invasive way," said Walsh, who is also the Paul A. Maeder Professor of Engineering and Applied Science at SEAS and whose group is experienced in developing wearable technology for diagnosing and treating disease. "This provides great motivation for the development of external, mechanical interventions to help accelerate and improve muscle and tissue healing that have the potential to be rapidly translated to the clinic." The team is continuing to investigate this line of research with multiple projects in the lab. They plan to validate this mechanotherpeutic approach in larger animals, with the goal of being able to test its efficacy on humans. They also hope to test it on different types of injuries, age-related muscle loss, and muscle performance enhancement. "The fields of mechanotherapy and immunotherapy rarely interact with each other, but this work is a testament to how crucial it is to consider both physical and biological elements when studying and working to improve human health," said Mooney, who is the corresponding author of the paper and the Robert P. Pinkas Family Professor of Bioengineering at SEAS. "The idea that mechanics influence cell and tissue function was ridiculed until the last few decades, and while scientists have made great strides in establishing acceptance of this fact, we still know very little about how that process actually works at the organ level. This research has revealed a previously unknown type of interplay between mechanobiology and immunology that is critical for muscle tissue healing, in addition to describing a new form of mechanotherapy that potentially could be as potent as chemical or gene therapies, but much simpler and less invasive," said Wyss Founding Director Don Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., who is also the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at (HMS) and the Vascular Biology Program at Boston Children's Hospital, as well as Professor of Bioengineering at SEAS.   Vitamin E could help protect older men from pneumonia University of Helsinki (Finland), October 7 2021.    An article that appeared in Clinical Interventions in Aging reported a protective role for vitamin E against pneumonia in older men.   For the current investigation, Dr Harri Hemilä of the University of Helsinki, Finland analyzed data from the Alpha-Tocopherol Beta-Carotene (ATBC) Cancer Prevention Study conducted in Finland. The trial included 29,133 men between the ages of 50 to 69 years who smoked at least five cigarettes daily upon enrollment. Participants received alpha tocopherol (vitamin E), beta carotene, both supplements, or a placebo for five to eight years.   The current study was limited to 7,469 ATBC participants who started smoking at age 21 or older. Among this group, supplementation with vitamin E was associated with a 35% lower risk of developing pneumonia in comparison with those who did not receive the vitamin.  Light smokers who engaged in leisure time exercise had a 69% lower risk compared with unsupplemented members of this subgroup. The risk in this subgroup of developing pneumonia by age 74 was 12.9%.   Among the one-third of the current study's population who quit smoking for a median period of two years, there was a 72% lower risk of pneumonia in association with vitamin E supplementation. In this group, exercisers who received vitamin E experienced an 81% lower pneumonia risk.   Dr Hemilä observed that the benefit for vitamin E in this study was strongest for older subjects—a group at higher risk of pneumonia.   "The current analysis of individual-level data suggests that trials on vitamin E and pneumonia on nonsmoking elderly males are warranted," he concluded.       Toxic fatty acids to blame for brain cell death after injury New York University, October 7, 2021 Cells that normally nourish healthy brain cells called neurons release toxic fatty acids after neurons are damaged, a new study in rodents shows. This phenomenon is likely the driving factor behind most, if not all, diseases that affect brain function, as well as the natural breakdown of brain cells seen in aging, researchers say. Previous research has pointed to astrocytes—a star-shaped glial cell of the central nervous system—as the culprits behind cell death seen in Parkinson's disease and dementia, among other neurodegenerative diseases. While many experts believed that these cells released a neuron-killing molecule to "clear away" damaged brain cells, the identity of this toxin has until now remained a mystery. Led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, the new investigation provides what they say is the first evidence that tissue damage prompts astrocytes to produce two kinds of fats, long-chain saturated free fatty acids and phosphatidylcholines. These fats then trigger cell death in damaged neurons, the electrically active cells that send messages throughout nerve tissue. Publishing Oct. 6 in the journal Nature, the study also showed that when researchers blocked fatty acid formation in mice, 75 percent of neurons survived compared with 10 percent when the fatty acids were allowed to form. The researchers' earlier work showed that brain cells continued to function when shielded from astrocyte attacks.  "Our findings show that the toxic fatty acids produced by astrocytes play a critical role in brain cell death and provide a promising new target for treating, and perhaps even preventing, many neurodegenerative diseases," says study co-senior author Shane Liddelow, Ph.D. Liddelow, an assistant professor in the Department of Neuroscience and Physiology at NYU Langone Health, adds that targeting these fats instead of the cells that produce them may be a safer approach to treating neurodegenerative diseasesbecause astrocytes feed nerve cells and clear away their waste. Stopping them from working altogether could interfere with healthy brain function. Although it remains unclear why astrocytes produce these toxins, it is possible they evolved to destroy damaged cells before they can harm their neighbors, says Liddelow. He notes that while healthy cells are not harmed by the toxins, neurons become susceptible to the damaging effects when they are injured, mutated, or infected by prions, the contagious, misfolded proteins that play a major role in mad cow disease and similar illnesses. Perhaps in chronic diseases like dementia, this otherwise helpful process goes off track and becomes a problem, the study authors say. For the investigation, researchers analyzed the molecules released by astrocytes collected from rodents. They also genetically engineered some groups of mice to prevent the normal production of the toxic fats and looked to see whether neuron death occurred after an acute injury. "Our results provide what is likely the most detailed molecular map to date of how tissue damage leads to brain cell death, enabling researchers to better understand why neurons die in all kinds of diseases," says Liddelow, also an assistant professor in the Department of Ophthalmology at NYU Langone. Liddelow cautions that while the findings are promising, the genetic techniques used to block the enzyme that produces toxic fatty acids in mice are not ready for use in humans. As a result, the researchers next plan is to explore safe and effective ways to interfere with the release of the toxins in human patients. Liddelow and his colleagues had previously shown these neurotoxic astrocytes in the brains of patients with Parkinson's, Huntington's disease, and multiple sclerosis, among other diseases.   Clinical trial for nicotinamide riboside: Vitamin safely boosts levels of important cell metabolite linked to multiple health benefits University of Iowa Health Care, October 3, 2021   In the first controlled clinical trial of nicotinamide riboside (NR), a newly discovered form of Vitamin B3, researchers have shown that the compound is safe for humans and increases levels of a cell metabolite that is critical for cellular energy production and protection against stress and DNA damage.   Studies in mice have shown that boosting the levels of this cell metabolite -- known as NAD+ -- can produce multiple health benefits, including resistance to weight gain, improved control of blood sugar and cholesterol, reduced nerve damage, and longer lifespan. Levels of NAD+ diminish with age, and it has been suggested that loss of this metabolite may play a role in age-related health decline.   These findings in animal studies have spurred people to take commercially available NR supplements designed to boost NAD+. However, these over-the-counter supplements have not undergone clinical trials to see if they work in people.   The new research, reported in the journal Nature Communications, was led by Charles Brenner, PhD, professor and Roy J. Carver Chair of Biochemistry at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine in collaboration with colleagues at Queens University Belfast and ChromaDex Corp. (NASDAQ: CDXC), which supplied the NR used in the trial. Brenner is a consultant for ChromaDex. He also is co-founder and Chief Scientific Adviser of ProHealthspan, which sells NR supplements under the trade name Tru NIAGEN®.   The human trial involved six men and six women, all healthy. Each participant received single oral doses of 100 mg, 300 mg, or 1,000 mg of NR in a different sequence with a seven-day gap between doses. After each dose, blood and urine samples were collected and analyzed by Brenner's lab to measure various NAD+ metabolites in a process called metabolomics. The trial showed that the NR vitamin increased NAD+ metabolism by amounts directly related to the dose, and there were no serious side effects with any of the doses.   "This trial shows that oral NR safely boosts human NAD+ metabolism," Brenner says. "We are excited because everything we are learning from animal systems indicates that the effectiveness of NR depends on preserving and/or boosting NAD+ and related compounds in the face of metabolic stresses. Because the levels of supplementation in mice that produce beneficial effects are achievable in people, it appears than health benefits of NR will be translatable to humans safely."   The next step will be to study the effect of longer duration NR supplementation on NAD+ metabolism in healthy adults, but Brenner also has plans to test the effects of NR in people with diseases and health conditions, including elevated cholesterol, obesity and diabetes, and people at risk for chemotherapeutic peripheral neuropathy.   Prior to the formal clinical trial, Brenner conducted a pilot human study -- on himself. In 2004, he had discovered that NR is a natural product found in milk and that there is pathway to convert NR to NAD+ in people. More than a decade of research on NR metabolic pathways and health effects in mice and rats had convinced him that NR supplementation had real promise to improve human health and wellness. After consulting with UI's institutional review board, he conducted an experiment in which he took 1 gram of NR once a day for seven days, and his team analyzed blood and urine samples using mass spectrometry. The experiment showed that Brenner's blood NAD+ increased by about 2.7 times. In addition, though he reported immediate sensitivity to flushing with the related compound niacin, he did not experience any side effects taking NR.   The biggest surprise from his metabolomic analysis was an increase in a metabolite called NAAD, which was multiplied by 45 times, from trace levels to amounts in the micromolar range that were easily detectable.   "While this was unexpected, I thought it might be useful," Brenner says. "NAD+ is an abundant metabolite and it is sometimes hard to see the needle move on levels of abundant metabolites. But when you can look at a low-abundance metabolite that goes from undetectable to easily detectable, there is a great signal to noise ratio, meaning that NAAD levels could be a useful biomarker for tracking increases in NAD+ in human trials."   Brenner notes this was a case of bidirectional translational science; having learned something from the initial human experiment, his team was able to return to laboratory mice to explore the unexpected NAAD finding in more detail.   Brenner's mouse study showed that NAAD is formed from NR and confirmed that NAAD levels are a strong biomarker for increased NAD+ metabolism. The experiments also revealed more detail about NAD+ metabolic pathways.   In particular, the researchers compared the ability of all three NAD+ precursor vitamins -- NR, niacin, and nicotinamide -- to boost NAD+ metabolism and stimulate the activity of certain enzymes, which have been linked to longevity and healthbenefits. The study showed for the first time that oral NR is superior to nicotinamide, which is better than niacin in terms of the total amount of NAD+ produced at an equivalent dose. NR was also the best of the three in stimulating the activity of sirtuin enzymes. However, in this case, NR was the best at stimulating sirtuin-like activities, followed by niacin, followed by nicotinamide.   The information from the mouse study subsequently helped Brenner's team design the formal clinical trial. In addition to showing that NR boosts NAD+ in humans without adverse effects, the trial confirmed that NAAD is a highly sensitive biomarker of NAD+ supplementation in people.   "Now that we have demonstrated safety in this small clinical trial, we are in a position to find out if the health benefits that we have seen in animals can be reproduced in people," says Brenner, who also is co-director of the Obesity Research and Education Initiative, professor of internal medicine, and a member of the Fraternal Order of Eagles Diabetes Research Center at the UI.   Protecting the ozone layer is delivering vast health benefits Montreal Protocol will spare Americans from 443 million skin cancer cases National Center for Atmospheric Research, October 7, 2021 An international agreement to protect the ozone layer is expected to prevent 443 million cases of skin cancer and 63 million cataract cases for people born in the United States through the end of this century, according to new research. The research team, by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), ICF Consulting, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), focused on the far-reaching impacts of a landmark 1987 treaty known as the Montreal Protocol and later amendments that substantially strengthened it. The agreement phased out the use of chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that destroy ozone in the stratosphere. Stratospheric ozone shields the planet from harmful levels of the Sun's ultraviolet (UV) radiation, protecting life on Earth. To measure the long-term effects of the Montreal Protocol, the scientists developed a computer modeling approach that enabled them to look to both the past and the future by simulating the treaty's impact on Americans born between 1890 and 2100. The modeling revealed the treaty's effect on stratospheric ozone, the associated reductions in ultraviolet radiation, and the resulting health benefits.  In addition to the number of skin cancer and cataract cases that were avoided, the study also showed that the treaty, as most recently amended, will prevent approximately 2.3 million skin cancer deaths in the U.S. “It's very encouraging,” said NCAR scientist Julia Lee-Taylor, a co-author of the study. “It shows that, given the will, the nations of the world can come together to solve global environmental problems.” The study, funded by the EPA, was published in ACS Earth and Space Chemistry. NCAR is sponsored by the National Science Foundation. Mounting concerns over the ozone layer Scientists in the 1970s began highlighting the threat to the ozone layer when they found that CFCs, used as refrigerants and in other applications, release chlorine atoms in the stratosphere that set off chemical reactions that destroy ozone. Concerns mounted the following decade with the discovery of an Antarctic ozone hole. The loss of stratospheric ozone would be catastrophic, as high levels of UV radiation have been linked to certain types of skin cancer, cataracts, and immunological disorders. The ozone layer also protects terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, as well as agriculture. Policy makers responded to the threat with the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, in which nations agreed to curtail the use of certain ozone-destroying substances. Subsequent amendments strengthened the treaty by expanding the list of ozone-destroying substances (such as halons and hydrochlorofluorocarbons, or HCFCs) and accelerating the timeline for phasing out their use. The amendments were based on Input from the scientific community, including a number of NCAR scientists, that were summarized in quadrennial Ozone Assessment reports. To quantify the impacts of the treaty, the research team built a model known as the Atmospheric and Health Effects Framework. This model, which draws on various data sources about ozone, public health, and population demographics, consists of five computational steps. These simulate past and future emissions of ozone-destroying substances, the impacts of those substances on stratospheric ozone, the resulting changes in ground-level UV radiation, the U.S. population's exposure to UV radiation, and the incidence and mortality of health effects resulting from the exposure. The results showed UV radiation levels returning to 1980 levels by the mid-2040s under the amended treaty. In contrast, UV levels would have continued to increase throughout this century if the treaty had not been amended, and they would have soared far higher without any treaty at all.  Even with the amendments, the simulations show excess cases of cataracts and various types of skin cancer beginning to occur with the onset of ozone depletion and peaking decades later as the population exposed to the highest UV levels ages. Those born between 1900 and 2040 experience heightened cases of skin cancer and cataracts, with the worst health outcomes affecting those born between about 1950 and 2000. However, the health impacts would have been far more severe without the treaty, with cases of skin cancer and cataracts rising at an increasingly rapid rate through the century.  “We peeled away from disaster,” Lee-Taylor said. “What is eye popping is what would have happened by the end of this century if not for the Montreal Protocol. By 2080, the amount of UV has tripled. After that, our calculations for the health impacts start to break down because we're getting so far into conditions that have never been seen before.” The research team also found that more than half the treaty's health benefits could be traced to the later amendments rather than the original 1987 Montreal Protocol. Overall, the treaty prevented more than 99% of potential health impacts that would have otherwise occurred from ozone destruction. This showed the importance of the treaty's flexibility in adjusting to evolving scientific knowledge, the authors said. The researchers focused on the U.S. because of ready access to health data and population projections. Lee-Taylor said that the specific health outcomes in other countries may vary, but the overall trends would be similar. “The treaty had broad global benefits,” she said.     What is Boron? The trace mineral boron provides profound anti-cancer effects, in addition to maintaining stronger bones. Life Extension, September 2021 Boron is a trace mineral found in the earth's crust and in water. Its importance in human health has been underestimated. Boron has been shown to have actions against specific types of malignancies, such as: Cervical cancer: The country Turkey has an extremely low incidence of cervical cancer, and scientists partially attribute this to its boron-rich soil.1 When comparing women who live in boron-rich regions versus boron-poor regions of Turkey, not a single woman living in the boron-rich regions had any indication of cervical cancer.2(The mean dietary intake of boron for women in this group was 8.41 mg/day.)  Boron interferes with the life cycle of the human papillomavirus (HPV), which is a contributing factor in approximately 95% of all cervical cancers.1  Considering that HPV viruses are increasingly implicated in head and neck cancers,3,4 supplementation with this ultra-low-cost mineral could have significant benefits in protecting against this malignancy that is increasing in prevalence. Lung cancer: A study conducted at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center between 1995 and 2005 found that increased boron intake was associated with a lower risk of lung cancer in postmenopausal women who were taking hormone replacement therapy. Prostate cancer: Studies point to boron's ability to inhibit the growth and spread of prostate cancer cells.  In one study, when mice were exposed to boric acid, their tumors shrank by as much as 38%.6 One analysis found that increased dietary boron intake was associated with a decreased risk of prostate cancer.7 Several human and animal studies have confirmed the important connection between boron and bone health. Boron prevents calcium loss,8 while also alleviating the bone problems associated with magnesium and vitamin D deficiency.9 All of these nutrients help maintain bone density. A study in female rats revealed the harmful effects a deficiency in boron has on bones, including:10 Decreased bone volume fraction, a measure of bone strength, Decreased thickness of the bone's spongy inner layer, and Decreased maximum force needed to break the femur. And in a study of post-menopausal women, supplementation with3 mg of boron per day prevented calcium loss and bone demineralization by reducing urinary excretion of both calcium and magnesium.8 In addition to its bone and anti-cancer benefits, there are nine additional reasons boron is an important trace mineral vital for health and longevity. It has been shown to:1 Greatly improve wound healing, Beneficially impact the body's use of estrogen, testosterone, and vitamin D, Boost magnesium absorption, Reduce levels of inflammatory biomarkers, such as high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) and tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α), Raise levels of antioxidant enzymes, such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase, and glutathione peroxidase, Protect against pesticide-induced oxidative stress and heavy-metal toxicity, Improve the brain's electrical activity, which may explain its benefits for cognitive performance, and short-term memory in the elderly, Influence the formation and activity of key biomolecules, such as S-adenosyl methionine (SAM-e) and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), and Potentially help ameliorate the adverse effects of traditional chemotherapeutic agents. Because the amount of boron varies in the soil, based on geographical location, obtaining enough boron through diet alone can be difficult. Supplementing with low-cost boron is an effective way to maintain adequate levels of this overlooked micronutrient.

In this episode of The Lattice podcast, we had the opportunity to chat with professor Ali Khademhosseini about his career, starting when he was a chemical engineering graduate student to becoming a full professor at Harvard, bicoastal move to UCLA, three-time entrepreneur, becoming an Amazon Fellow, to finally becoming the founder and director of the Terasaki Institute, a new educational research center that also wants to build young companies. While Ali has been incredibly productive in academia, his career trajectory is clearly towards academic entrepreneurship, an exciting concept to many scientists, especially in light of the pandemic and the rise of companies like Moderna. Given his success, I dug a little deeper into his secret sauce to achieve success. Fortunately, Ali was willing to share it with everyone as well as his evolving view on what is meaningful success to him and what he envisions his next achievement milestone. Since I knew Ali from his many works on biomaterials and 3D printing, we also discussed his vision for the field.  About our Guest for this episode: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alikmit/Ali Khademhosseini is currently the CEO and Founding Director at the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation. Previously, he was a Professor of Bioengineering, Chemical Engineering and Radiology at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA). He joined UCLA as the Levi Knight Chair in November 2017 from Harvard University where he was Professor at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and faculty at the Harvard-MIT's Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST), Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) and as well as associate faculty at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. At Harvard University, he directed the Biomaterials Innovation Research Center (BIRC) a leading initiative in making engineered biomedical materials. Dr. Khademhosseini is an Associate Editor for ACS Nano. He served as the Research Highlights editor for Lab on a Chip. He is a fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), Biomaterials Science and Engineering (FBSE), Materials Research Society (MRS), NANOSMAT Society, and American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He is also the recipient of the Mustafa Prize ($500,000 prize) and is a member of the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering, Royal Society of Canada and Canadian Academy of Engineering, and National Academy of Inventors. He is an author on >650 peer-reviewed journal articles, editorials and review papers, >70 book chapters/edited books and >40 patents/patent applications. He has been cited >74,000 times and has an H-index of 139. He has made seminal contributions to modifying hydrogels and developing novel biomaterial solutions for addressing pressing problems in healthcare. He has founded 2 companies, Obsidio Medical and Bioray. He received his Ph.D. in bioengineering from MIT (2005), and MASc (2001) and BASc (1999) degrees from University of Toronto both in chemical engineering.Support the show (https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=STF9STPYVE2GG&source=url)

Sam Kriegman is a computer scientist turned postdoc researcher at the Wyss lab for Biologically Inspired Engineering with Michael Levin, the bio electricity researcher who regenerated limbs on a frog. Sam has focused on evolutionary design for creating xenobots, which are created from frog embryos and sculpted into tiny living organisms. They are absolutely incredible and I recommend looking up a picture of them. If you're on YouTube, then it's in the thumbnail haha. Anyways, we discuss the xenobots, and the future of biological evolutionary design, now let's get into the episode! Testing out new cover art lmk what you think https://twitter.com/Kriegmerica https://twitter.com/nasjaq__ video podcast: https://www.youtube.com/nasjaq All podcast hosts: https://anchor.fm/nasjaq All my links: https://beacons.page/nasjaq --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nasjaq/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/nasjaq/support

On this episode we'll meet Dr. Daniel Levner, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at Emulate, a company commercializing technology to remake human biology from the ground up using small rubbery microfluidic chips. Forged in a multi-year partnership between DARPA and Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Emulate develops organ chips for the lung, intestine, liver, kidney, and even the brain. Slotting in between cell culture dishes, organoids, and animal models, this burgeoning area is one in which startups must marry high design and fundamentally challenging biomedical engineering to recapitulate a human being on a chip reproducibly, at scale, and under budget. Their challenge, to simultaneously accelerate and improve outcomes while reducing costs in drug development, is immense. In response, Emulate's organ chips are elegantly engineered works of art that enable scientists to move beyond the dish and blur the lines between in vitro and in vivo. This is the TomorrowScale podcast. Hosted by Justin Briggs. Emulate Dr. Daniel Levner on LinkedIn Emulate's just announced $82M Series E "Reconstituting Organ-Level Lung Functions on a Chip" (Huh et al 2010) Additional Emulate Publications Axial's Joshua Elkington recently published a backgrounder on Emulate. The TomorrowScale Podcast showcases scientists and entrepreneurs building scientific ventures, and to hear stories from the benches and in the trenches of research & development. The views expressed by the host and guests are their own, and the content of this show should not be considered legal, tax, or investing advice. Thanks to our guests for sharing their time and knowledge with us. Thank you for listening. Please science responsibly. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tomorrowscale/support

A team of researchers from Harvard University's Wyss [veese] Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering has created underwater fish robots. Called the Bluebots, the robots are an imitation of blue tang fish, a species of small fish usually found in Indo-Pacific coral reefs. The 3D-printed Bluebots are about 10 centimeters long. They use cameras and LED lights to see and navigate, and their tiny fins help them maneuver through the water. According to one researcher, the team got inspiration for the Bluebots when they saw a school of fish while scuba diving. They were fascinated by the fish swimming together without explicit communication, and they wanted to replicate this behavior in the lab. Designer Florian Berlinger said the robots are capable of grouping together or dispersing as needed with little to no interaction from human controllers. Bluebots can navigate independently by calculating their neighbors' distance and direction. They are also capable of cooperating to complete tasks. For instance, a group may be assigned to find a red LED in their tank. Each Bluebot can search independently, but when one of them finds the red LED, that robot sends a signal to call the others. Berlinger said that other researchers had reached out to him about possibly using the Bluebots for studies about fish swimming and schooling. He said that it makes him happy to hear that they are open to the idea of including his invention among their laboratory fish. In the future, Berlinger expects that these robots could closely monitor fragile environments, such as coral reefs, without harming marine life. The Bluebots could also explore underneath docks and other spaces that humans cannot reach, and may even be helpful in locating people in distress during search-and-rescue missions.

Point of Care Medical Devices are the future! Dr. Pawan Jolly, Senior Staff Scientist at The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University talks with Jonah and Aryan about his research in the biosensor and medical device arena. We ask him about his latest COVID-19 focused project, his experience studying abroad (4 times!) and hear his journey to becoming one of the top researchers in his field. Join us as we go Beyond the Books!

Bio: Robert Wood is the Charles River Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, an Associate Faculty member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, and a National Geographic Explorer. Prof. Wood completed his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in the Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. He is founder of the Harvard Microrobotics Lab which leverages expertise in microfabrication for the development of biologically-inspired robots with feature sizes on the micrometer to centimeter scale. He is the winner of multiple awards for his work including the DARPA Young Faculty Award, NSF Career Award, ONR Young Investigator Award, Air Force Young Investigator Award, Technology Review’s TR35, and multiple best paper awards. In 2010 Wood received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from President Obama for his work in microrobotics. In 2012 he was selected for the Alan T. Waterman award, the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious early career award. In 2014 he was named one of National Geographic’s “Emerging Explorers”. Wood’s group is also dedicated to STEM education by using novel robots to motivate young students to pursue careers in science and engineering.

It was a pleasure to have Prof.Ali Khademhosseini, one of the pioneers of the Bioengineering field. Prof.Ali’s journey from Harvard, UCLA to Terasaki Institute is truly inspiring. What does Terasaki institute do to bring a product to the real world? The design challenges of biomaterials, organ on a chip, and soft robotics. I hope you enjoy listening! Bio: Ali Khademhosseini is the Director and CEO of the Terasaki Institute and former Professor at the University of California-Los Angeles where he held a multi-departmental professorship in Bioengineering, Radiology, Chemical, and Biomolecular Engineering and the Director of Center for Minimally Invasive Therapeutics (C-MIT). From 2005 to 2017, he was a Professor at Harvard Medical School, and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. His studies have been cited over 70,000 times. Khademhosseini is best known for developing hydrogels for tissue engineering and bioprinting.

Cancer claims the lives of 1 in 6 individuals globally, and most patients suffer from some form of lung cancer. The efficacy of chemotherapy is low due to ineffective targeting and poor drug accumulation. In this episode, we speak with Dr. Samir Mitragotri on how his team assembled a way to utilize the body’s red blood cells to smuggle nanoparticles to the affected lung in a trojan horse-like fashion. Remarkably, this extended the circulation time of the drug and increased delivery by 10-fold in comparison to free nanoparticles. Dr. Samir Mitragotri is a Hiller Professor of Bioengineering and Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. He has been inducted into the National Academies of Engineering and Medicine and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His expertise and hard work have led to 210 publications and around 150 patents.

Events are moving too fast for me to offer an interview on Covid19, so instead here's some good news from 2012. Our bodies - and all living systems - accomplish tasks far more sophisticated and dynamic than any entity yet designed by humans. Emulating nature's principles, researchers at Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering develop innovative engineering solutions for healthcare, robotics, and more. Here's my conversation with founding director, DON INGBER.

Our bodies — and all living systems — accomplish tasks far more sophisticated and dynamic than any entity yet designed by humans. By emulating nature's principles, researchers at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering develop innovative engineering solutions for healthcare, energy, robotics, and more. Here’s my 2012 conversation with founding director, DON INGBER. I find the notion of learning from nature one of the most exciting developments in human activity, one that gives me great hope.

Can robots ever learn to feel? Our ability to perform delicate tasks, like giving a gentle hug or picking a piece of fruit, is something that robots can't yet mimic.Ryan Truby, an alum of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences has created bioinspired soft robots that can squish, stretch, and feel their way around the world - and they have the potential to change how we understand robotics.Full TranscriptThe Veritalk Team:Host/Producer: Anna Fisher-PinkertSound Designer: Ian CossLogo: Emily CrowellExecutive Producer: Ann HallSpecial thanks to Ryan Truby and Jennifer Lewis. Ryan Truby’s research is supported by the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, National Science Foundation through the Harvard MRSEC, the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and the Schmidt Science Fellows program, in partnership with the Rhodes Trust.

A research team has designed a new portable exosuit that could soon help people walk and run. You know what, it's just nice to report a new exoskeleton that doesn't have a tail. You wear the hip exosuit on your waist and thighs with the actuation system attached to your lower back. The system uses an algorithm to predict when you're going to switch from running to walking, or vice versa, by analyzing how your center of mass is moving. That way, it doesn’t give you too much of a boost when your walking. According to the researchers, the new suit is lightweight and uses a cable actuation system that applies force from the waist belt, and thigh wraps to generate torque that works in concert with the gluteal muscles.The device weighs a little more than 11 pounds, but most of the weight which is around your trunk.In initial tests, the exosuit reduced metabolic rates in walkers by 9.3 percent and in runners by 4 percent. In subsequent experiments, it helped users more efficiently walk uphill walking, run at various speeds, and traverse multiple terrains. The hip exosuit was actually developed as part of DARPA’s former Warrior Web program and is the result of years of soft exosuit R&D. The team previously developed a multi-joint exosuit that was licensed by ReWalk Robotics. In April 2018, the previous suit was used by a paralyzed man to complete a marathon. The team includes researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), the University of Nebraska Omaha, and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. Their work was recently published in Science Robotics. Next, the team will try to make an even smaller, lighter, and quieter version of the robotic shorts.

Dr. Richie Kohman is a Senior Research Scientist & Lead of the Synthetic Biology Platform at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. He oversees all research conducted by the Synthetic Biology Platform including advances in nucleic acid synthesis and sequencing, neurotechnology, gene therapy, aging reversal, gene editing, organism recoding, in situ omics, organ engineering, stem cell therapy, extinct species resurrection, and all aspects relating to the intersection of synthetic biology and synthetic chemistry. Richie is also co-PI, along with George Church at the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, of an IARPA-funded project to map synaptic connectivity in large brain volumes. https://richiekohman.com Wyss Institute ► https://wyss.harvard.edu/team/advanced-technology-team/richie-e-kohman-ph-d/ LinkedIn ► https://linkedin.com/in/richiekohman Google Scholar ► https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1F7Wl9sAAAAJ ******* Feed Children Every Time You Pay Your Bills ► http://bit.ly/HelpFeedChildren Simulation interviews the greatest minds alive to inspire you to build the future ► http://simulationseries.com ******* Subscribe across platforms ► Youtube ► http://bit.ly/SimYoTu iTunes ► http://bit.ly/SimulationiTunes Instagram ► http://bit.ly/SimulationIG Twitter ► http://bit.ly/SimulationTwitter ******* Facebook ► http://bit.ly/SimulationFB Soundcloud ► http://bit.ly/SimulationSC LinkedIn ► http://bit.ly/SimulationLinkedIn Patreon ► http://bit.ly/SimulationPatreon Crypto ► http://bit.ly/SimCrypto ******* Nuance-driven Telegram chat ► http://bit.ly/SimulationTG Allen's TEDx Talk ► http://bit.ly/AllenTEDx Allen's IG ► http://bit.ly/AllenIG Allen's Twitter ► http://bit.ly/AllenT ******* List of Thought-Provoking Questions ► http://simulationseries.com/the-list Get in Touch ► simulationseries@gmail.com

David Walt is Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and Harvard Medical School. We talk about his background and how he founded a multi-billion dollar company. Full show notes:

Saurabh Mhatre talks about the simplicity behind deployable systems, the chaos of taking pictures, mindful photography, material science, social media, productivity tools, and more. Saurabh grew up and studied architecture in Mumbai. He holds a Master in Design Studies with a focus on technology from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he currently explores how flat deployable mechanisms can morph into three-dimensional shapes with minimal actuation, to enable ephemeral uses of mundane items and facilitate their storage and shipment, as part of his research at the Material Processes and Systems (MaP+S) Group. He enjoys working with people from different disciplines, ranging from biological engineering to material science, and works across multiple material scales, from the nano-scale of medical devices to large form-factor of deployable shelters. Saurabh also shares with us his love for photography, how he interacts with social media, and what productivity tools help him keep track of his work. You can find Saurabh on Facebook, his photos at @sm8928 on Instagram, and his most recent work at saurabhmhatre.com. Episode notes The Material Processes and Systems (MaP+S) Group, led by Professor Martin Bechthold, is a research unit that promotes the understanding, development and deployment of innovative technologies for buildings. [2:00] The Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) is the engineering school within Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences. It offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering and applied sciences. [2:35] The Wyss (pronounced /viːs/ "veese") Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering is a cross-disciplinary research institute at Harvard University which focuses on developing new bioinspired materials and devices for applications in healthcare, manufacturing, robotics, energy, and sustainable architecture. Saurabh's current research on deployable mechanisms at different scales, flat objects that can morph into three-dimensional shapes with minimal actuation. [06:10] What other projects would you like to work on if you had the time? [12:45] Are there new materials or mechanisms (widely known in research labs in Cambridge) that will hit the market in the next years? [13:23] Masala Chai is Saurabh's morning to-go drink. [17:08] Differences between living in Mumbai and living in Cambridge. [18:45] "The way photography for me started." [21:35] Adobe Lightroom is a photography editing desktop app part of Saurabh's editing workflow. [22:45] Evernote is a note-taking app. [31:45] Toggl is a time-tracking tool. [33:08] Digital toolbox. [36:10] Visualizing Architecture by Alex Hogrefe. [36:24] Contact staff and flow arts. [40:05] Meditation, reiki, and art of living. [40:40] The Secret Life of Walter Mitty's soundtrack by Jose González, who is also the singer of Junip. [45:45] Submit your questions and I'll try to answer them in future episodes. I'd love to hear from you. If you enjoy the show, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds and really helps. Show notes, transcripts, and past episodes at gettingsimple.com/podcast. Theme song Sleep by Steve Combs under CC BY 4.0. Follow Nono Twitter.com/nonoesp Instagram.com/nonoesp Facebook.com/nonomartinezalonso YouTube.com/nonomartinezalonso

We had a great Convo with functional apparel designer Dani Ryan about her work with Harvard University's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. Her team has partnered with DARPA to create a soft-robotic exosuit designed to augment human motion and (more importantly to the military) help soldiers carry heavy loads over long distances. However, this same technology might soon be used to help stroke patients and others regain the ability to walk. PCMag.com is your ultimate destination for tech reviews and news. Subscribe to our videos here: https://goo.gl/JfBShr Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PCMag Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PCMag Gawk at our photos on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pcmagofficial Get our latest tips and tricks on Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/pcmag

Jim Collins, an institute member at the Broad Institute, a core faculty member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, and a professor at MIT, dives into the social and scientific causes of antibiotic resistance and explains some of what his lab is doing to combat the problem.

Fireside chat with Dr. Chris Gemmiti, Weiss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering In this episode, Shiraz Ziya catches up with Chris following the first webinar in the PAP series. Speakers:...

Dr. Kyle Vining is a dentist-scientist from Brookline, MA. He is a Fellow at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, where he is completing his Ph.D. with Professor David Mooney. Kyle practices general dentistry at a multi-specialty private group practice in Brookline, MA.   Kyle’s research goal is to discover new insights about biology and improve ways to treat disease by investigating how materials interface with biology. Kyle and his colleague Adam Celiz from the University of Nottingham recently won a prize at the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Emerging Technologies Competition in London, UK for their dental material technology that may one day lead to regenerative treatments in restorative dentistry. They are developing a therapeutic dental biomaterial that can be placed in contact with vital pulp tissues to stimulate native dental stem cells to regenerate or repair dentin.   Kyle was also recently awarded a K08 Mentored Clinical Scientist Research Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to fund his Ph.D. thesis on how the mechanical properties of tissue affect stem cells’ ability to suppress the immune system. Prior to working in the Boston area, Kyle completed his Doctor of Dental Surgery training with High Distinction from the University of Minnesota, as well as a one-year research fellowship in the NIH Medical Research Scholars Program. http://mooneylab.seas.harvard.edu/people/kyle-vining   www.brookline-dental.com

George Church: Responsibility, art & science of intentional extinction, de-extinction & aging (2/17/16) - 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.

Welcome to DISRUPTIVE the podcast from Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. In this episode of DISRUPTIVE, we will focus on a cancer vaccine and hydrogel drug depots – both being developed by Wyss Founding Core Faculty Member, DAVE MOONEY. Mooney says the human immune system is the most efficient weapon on the planet to fight disease. Cancer, however, resists treatment and cure by evading the immune system. Unlike bacterial cells or viruses, cancer cells belong in the body, but are simply mutated and misplaced. Scientists have been trying to develop vaccines that provoke the immune system to recognize cancer cells as foreign and attack them. The approach developed by Mooney’s group, in which they reprogram immune cells from inside the body using implantable biomaterials, appears simpler and more effective than other cancer vaccines currently in clinical trials. In one study, 50% of mice treated with two doses of the vaccine -- mice that would have otherwise died from melanoma within about 25 days -- showed complete tumor regression. On a second front, when it comes to delivering drugs or protein-based therapeutics, doctors often give patients pills or inject the drug into their bloodstream. Both are inefficient methods for delivering effective doses to targeted tissues. Mooney and his team at Wyss are taking a new approach using biocompatible and biodegradable hydrogels. They’ve developed a gel-based sponge that can be molded to any shape, loaded with drugs or stem cells, compressed to a fraction of its size, and delivered via injection. Once inside the body, it pops back to its original shape, gradually releases its payload, and safely degrades. After we explore both of these exciting projects with Mooney, we take a closer look at the process of translation of hydrogel technology into products and therapies with Chris Gemmiti, a business development lead at Wyss. http://wyss.harvard.edu

Hello, I’m Terrence McNally and you’re listening to DISRUPTIVE the podcast from Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. The mission of the Wyss is to: Transform healthcare, industry, and the environment by emulating the way nature builds. Our bodies — and all living systems — accomplish tasks far more sophisticated and dynamic than any entity yet designed by humans. By emulating nature's principles for self-organizing and self-regulating, Wyss researchers develop innovative engineering solutions for healthcare, energy, architecture, robotics, and manufacturing. They focus on technology development and its translation into products and therapies that will have an impact on the world in which we live. So the Wyss is not interested in making incremental improvements to existing materials and devices, but in shifting paradigms. In this episode of DISRUPTIVE, we will focus on: CONFRONTING SEPSIS. Sepsis is a bloodstream infection in which the body's organs become inflamed and susceptible to failure. The leading cause of hospital deaths, sepsis kills at least eight million people worldwide each year. It can be caused by 6 species of fungi and 1400 species of bacteria. Diagnosis takes two to five days, and every hour you wait can increase the risk of death by 5-9%. The treatment challenge grows more complex as the prevalence of drug-resistant bacteria increases while the development of new antibiotics lags. “Even with the best current treatments, sepsis patients are dying in intensive care units at least 30% of the time,” says one of today’s guests, Wyss Senior Staff Scientist Mike Super. A new device developed by a team at Wyss and inspired by the human spleen may radically transform the way we treat sepsis. Their blood-cleansing approach can be administered quickly, even without identifying the infectious agent. In animal studies, treatment with this device reduced the number of targeted pathogens and toxins circulating in the bloodstream by more than 99%. Although we focus here on treatment of sepsis, the same technology could in the future be used for other applications, including removing microbial contaminants from circulating water, food or pharmaceutical products.

Welcome to the second episode of my new monthly podcast series produced with Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. DISRUPTIVE: BIO-INSPIRED ROBOTICS features three separate interviews with (1) RADHIKA NAGPAL, (2) ROBERT WOOD, and (3) CONOR WALSH. From insects in your backyard, to creatures in the sea, to what you see in the mirror, engineers and scientists at Wyss are drawing inspiration to design a whole new class of smart robotic devices In this one, CONOR WALSH discusses how a wearable robotic exosuit or soft robotic glove can assist people with mobility impairments, as well as how the goal to create real-world applications drives his research approach. In part one, RADHIKA NAGPAL talks about her work Inspired by social insects and multicellular systems, including the TERMES robots for collective construction of 3D structures, and the KILOBOT thousand-robot swarm. She also speaks candidly about the challenges faced by women in the engineering and computer science fields. In part two, ROBERT WOOD discusses new manufacturing techniques that are enabling popup and soft robots. His team’s ROBO-BEE is the first insect-sized winged robot to demonstrate controlled flight. The mission of the Wyss Institute is to: Transform healthcare, industry, and the environment by emulating the way nature builds, with a focus on technology development and its translation into products and therapies that will have an impact on the world in which we live. Their work is disruptive not only in terms of science but also in how they stretch the usual boundaries of academia. http://wyss.harvard.edu/ - See more at: DISRUPTIVE: BIO-INSPIRED ROBOTICS Radhika Nagpal Interview http://temcnally.podomatic.com/entry/2015-07-30T21_32_52-07_00 DISRUPTIVE: BIO-INSPIRED ROBOTICS Robert Wood Interview http://temcnally.podomatic.com/entry/2015-07-30T21_37_41-07_00 Conor Walsh's interview transcript http://aworldthatjustmightwork.com/2015/07/auto-draft-18/

Welcome to the second episode of my new monthly podcast series produced with Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. DISRUPTIVE: BIO-INSPIRED ROBOTICS features three separate interviews with (1) RADHIKA NAGPAL, (2) ROBERT WOOD, and (3) CONOR WALSH. From insects in your backyard, to creatures in the sea, to what you see in the mirror, engineers and scientists at Wyss are drawing inspiration to design a whole new class of smart robotic devices In this one, ROBERT WOOD discusses new manufacturing techniques that are enabling popup and soft robots. His team’s ROBO-BEE is the first insect-sized winged robot to demonstrate controlled flight. In part one, RADHIKA NAGPAL talks about her work Inspired by social insects and multicellular systems, including the TERMES robots for collective construction of 3D structures, and the KILOBOT thousand-robot swarm. She also speaks candidly about the challenges faced by women in the engineering and computer science fields. In part three, 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. The mission of the Wyss Institute is to: Transform healthcare, industry, and the environment by emulating the way nature builds, with a focus on technology development and its translation into products and therapies that will have an impact on the world in which we live. Their work is disruptive not only in terms of science but also in how they stretch the usual boundaries of academia. http://wyss.harvard.edu/ - See more at: DISRUPTIVE: BIO-INSPIRED ROBOTICS Radhika Nagpal Interview http://temcnally.podomatic.com/entry/2015-07-30T21_32_52-07_00 DISRUPTIVE: BIO-INSPIRED ROBOTICS Conor Walsh Interview http://temcnally.podomatic.com/entry/2015-07-30T22_01_42-07_00 Robert Wood's interview transcript http://aworldthatjustmightwork.com/2015/07/auto-draft-17/

Welcome to the second episode of my new monthly podcast series produced with Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. DISRUPTIVE: BIO-INSPIRED ROBOTICS features three separate interviews with (1) RADHIKA NAGPAL, (2) ROBERT WOOD, and (3) CONOR WALSH. From insects in your backyard, to creatures in the sea, to what you see in the mirror, engineers and scientists at Wyss are drawing inspiration to design a whole new class of smart robotic devices In this one, RADHIKA NAGPAL talks about her work Inspired by social insects and multicellular systems, including the TERMES robots for collective construction of 3D structures, and the KILOBOT thousand-robot swarm. She also speaks candidly about the challenges faced by women in the engineering and computer science fields. In part two, ROBERT WOOD discusses new manufacturing techniques that are enabling popup and soft robots. His team’s ROBO-BEE is the first insect-sized winged robot to demonstrate controlled flight. In part three, 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. The mission of the Wyss Institute is to: Transform healthcare, industry, and the environment by emulating the way nature builds, with a focus on technology development and its translation into products and therapies that will have an impact on the world in which we live. Their work is disruptive not only in terms of science but also in how they stretch the usual boundaries of academia. http://wyss.harvard.edu/ -See more at: DISRUPTIVE: BIO-INSPIRED ROBOTICS Robert Wood's Interview http://temcnally.podomatic.com/entry/2015-07-30T21_37_41-07_00 DISRUPTIVE: BIO-INSPIRED ROBOTICS Conor Walsh's Interview http://temcnally.podomatic.com/entry/2015-07-30T22_01_42-07_00 Radhika Nagpal's interview transcript http://aworldthatjustmightwork.com/2015/07/auto-draft-16/

I’m excited to offer the first episode of DISRUPTIVE, my new monthly podcast series produced with Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. The mission of the Wyss Institute is to: Transform healthcare, industry, and the environment by emulating the way nature builds, with a focus on technology development and its translation into products and therapies that will have an impact on the world in which we live. Their work is disruptive not only in terms of science but also in how they stretch the usual boundaries of academia. In this inaugural episode, Wyss core faculty members Pamela Silver and George Church explain how, with today’s technology breakthroughs, modifications to an organism’s genome can be conducted more cheaply, efficiently, and effectively than ever before. Researchers are programming microbes to treat wastewater, 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, find ways to eradicate malaria from mosquito lines, or possibly even make genetic improvements in humans that are passed down to future generations. Silver and Church discuss both the high-impact benefits of their work as well as their commitment to the prevention of unintended consequences in this new age of genetic engineering.

Originally Aired 5/6/12 After 3.8 billion years of R&D on this planet, failures are fossils. What surrounds us in the natural world is what has succeeded. Nature, imaginative by necessity, has already solved many of the problems we are grappling with. Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate engineers. They have found what works, what is appropriate, and most important, what lasts here on Earth. In January 2009, Harvard received the largest philanthropic gift in its history -- $125M -- to create the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, and today's guest is its founding director, DON INGBER. Our bodies - and all living systems - accomplish tasks far more sophisticated and dynamic than any entity yet designed by humans. By emulating nature's principles for self-organizing and self-regulating, Wyss researchers develop innovative engineering solutions for healthcare, energy, architecture, robotics, and manufacturing.

Link to audio file (28:48)In this episode, we talk to Justin Werfel from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University about their latest paper published in Science on “Designing Collective Behavior in a Termite-...

A physicist decides that the best way to make progress on his robotics project is to go to Namibia to study termites. Every week the Story Collider brings you a true, personal story about science. Find more here: http://storycollider.org/ Justin Werfel is a research scientist at Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. He received his PhD at MIT and did postdoctoral work at Harvard and the New England Complex Systems Institute. He works on topics including swarm robotics, evolutionary theory, DNA self-assembly, and cancer modeling, and recently published an invited book chapter about the ecology of Fraggle Rock. He's a two-time MassMouth Big Mouth Off finalist and Audience Choice winner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aired 05/06/12 After 3.8 billion years of R&D on this planet, failures are fossils. What surrounds us in the natural world is what has succeeded and survived. So why not learn as much as we can from what works? Nature, imaginative by necessity, has already solved many of the problems we are grappling with. Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate engineers. They have found what works, what is appropriate, and most important, what lasts here on Earth. In January 2009, Harvard received the largest philanthropic gift in its history -- $125M -- to create the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, and today's guest is its founding director, DON INGBER. I find this whole notion of imitating nature one of the most exciting developments in human activity and something that gives me great hope. The human body is an engineering marvel that maintains its balance while executing complicated movements, and senses and adapts to heat and cold. Every 20 seconds, it circulates blood through its extremities. Its cells are able to replace wounded tissue, find and destroy dangerous invaders, and interconnect to produce thoughts and emotions. Our bodies - and all living systems - accomplish tasks far more sophisticated and dynamic than any entity yet designed by humans. By emulating nature's principles for self-organizing and self-regulating, Wyss researchers develop innovative engineering solutions for healthcare, energy, architecture, robotics, and manufacturing. http://wyss.harvard.edu

In today's episode we focus on self-organizing systems in modular and swarm robotics with Radhika Nagpal, director of the Self-Organized Systems Research Group at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard.