all bioengineering stories

From stem cells to functioning strip of heart muscle

404132862 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:00:00 -0400

A team of Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and collaborators at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) has taken a giant step toward the possibility of using human stem cells to repair damaged hearts.

Donald Ingber awarded the 2009 BMES Pritzker Distinguished Lectureship for outstanding achievements, originality and leadership

404132862 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:00:54 -0500

Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., founding director of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, has been awarded the Biomedical Engineering Society’s prestigious Pritzker Distinguished Lectureship for 2009. The lectureship recognizes outstanding achievements, a high level of originality and leadership in the science and practice of biomedical engineering.

Research team at Harvard to develop small-scale mobile robotic devices

404132862 — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:02:10 -0400

A multidisciplinary team of computer scientists, engineers, and biologists at Harvard received a $10 million National Science Foundation (NSF) Expeditions in Computing grant to fund the development of small-scale mobile robotic devices. Inspired by the biology of a bee and the insect’s hive behavior, the researchers aim to push advances in miniature robotics and the design of compact high-energy power sources; spur innovations in ultra-low-power computing and electronic “smart” sensors; and refine coordination algorithms to manage multiple, independent machines.

Skin biology illuminates how stem cells operate

50443248 — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:13:51 -0400

As a girl, Elaine Fuchs borrowed her mother’s old strainers and mixing bowls to collect polliwogs, an activity she credits for her present-day career as a biologist.

It also helped that her father was a geochemist who studied meteorites, her aunt a radiation expert, her older sister a neuroscientist.

Going on to study science “was almost a no-brainer,” said Fuchs, who did her Ph.D. at Princeton University.

Cherry A. Murray is named dean of SEAS

90581724 — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 11:56:42 -0400

Cherry A. Murray, who has led some of the nation’s most brilliant scientists and engineers at Bell Laboratories and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has been appointed dean of Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), effective July 1, 2009.

She will also become the John A. and Elizabeth S. Armstrong Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Capillary formation’s mechanical determinants

404132862 — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 11:14:04 -0400

Harvard researchers have established a link between the growth of blood vessels and the mechanical stresses caused by the environment within which the vessels grow, a new understanding that researchers hope can lead to novel disease treatments based on manipulating blood flow to living tissues.

Science, engineering programs advancing

404132862 — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:16:21 -0500

Harvard President Drew Faust today renewed the University’s commitment to the vision of advancing interdisciplinary, collaborative science in general, and the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology (SCRB), the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI), and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering (WIBIE) in particular.

Implants mimic infection to rally immune system against tumors

404132862 — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 11:06:29 -0500

Harvard bioengineers have shown that small plastic disks impregnated with tumor-specific antigens and implanted under the skin can reprogram the mammalian immune system to attack tumors.

The research — which rid 90 percent of mice of an aggressive form of melanoma that would usually kill the rodents within 25 days — represents the most effective demonstration to date of a cancer vaccine.

The research by David J. Mooney is published in the current issue of the journal Nature Materials.

Researchers control the assembly of nanobristles into helical clusters

404132862 — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 15:10:16 -0500

From the structure of DNA to nautical rope to distant spiral galaxies, helical forms are as useful as they are abundant in nature and manufacturing alike.

Hansjorg Wyss gives $125 million to create institute for biologically inspired engineering

404132862 — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:48:09 -0400

Engineer, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Hansjörg Wyss MBA ’65 has given Harvard University $125 million to create the Hansjörg Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.

Investigators at the Wyss Institute (pronounced “Vees”) will strive to uncover the engineering principles that govern living things, and use this knowledge to develop technology solutions for the most pressing healthcare and environmental issues facing humanity. Wyss’ gift is the largest individual gift in the University’s history.

Grapefruit compound may help combat hepatitis C infection

yvette — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 16:44:36 -0500

A compound that naturally occurs in grapefruit and other citrus fruits may be able to block the secretion of hepatitis C virus (HCV) from infected cells, a process required to maintain chronic infection. A team of researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Engineering in Medicine (MGH-CEM) report that HCV is bound to very low-density lipoprotein (vLDL, a so-called “bad” cholesterol) when it is secreted from liver cells and that the viral secretion required to pass infection to other cells may be blocked by the common read more

Turning on cells with magnetic switches

404132862 — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 16:35:50 -0500

Harvard scientists have figured out how to turn cells on and off using magnets, an advance with potentially broad applications as researchers around the world work to find new ways to manipulate cells and correct cellular functions that diseases send awry.

Biohybrid of elastic film and muscle cells packs a punch

50443248 — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 16:04:05 -0400

In an innovative marriage of living cells and a synthetic substrate, bioengineers at Harvard University have found that a rubberlike, elastic film coated with a single layer of cardiac muscle cells can semi-autonomously engage in lifelike gripping, pumping, walking, and swimming. The tissue engineering feat was reported in the Sept. 7 issue of the journal Science.

The researchers, led by Kevin Kit Parker and Adam W. Feinberg, report that the exact movement undertaken by these hybrid muscular thin films (MTFs) can be tailored by controlling muscle alignment relative to the shape of the flexible film. Some of the MTFs even contract spontaneously, an intrinsic property of cardiac muscle that allows the devices to move around without user intervention.

Stem cell research sheds light on organ regeneration

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 10:33:24 -0400

The rules governing mammalian organ repair and regeneration are so widely varied as to suggest at first glance that there are no rules: Blood has such an enormous regenerative capacity that you can literally give it away by the pint and be none the worse for wear; rip a hole in your skin and new skin will cover it; donate a portion of your liver and it will regenerate; but lose a kidney or suffer damage to your pancreas, and what's lost is lost.

Major progress toward cell reprogramming

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 09:34:31 -0400

Two Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers and scientists at Whitehead Institute and Japan's Kyoto University have independently taken major steps toward discovering ways to reprogram cells in order to direct their development - a key goal in developmental biology and regenerative medicine.

Additionally, the group led by Kevin Eggan, an HSCI principal faculty member - whose study is featured on the cover of the latest issue of the journal Nature - has disproved a long-held view of developmental biologists by demonstrating in mice that it is possible to use previously fertilized ova to produce disease-specific stem cell lines using somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) - commonly referred to as therapeutic cloning.