All Posts

By Sasha Stafford Principal Scientist & Founder, Elixis Biosciences LLC In the modern era of precision medicine, we possess an unprecedented toolkit of therapeutic payloads. Today’s scientists can engineer CAR-T cells to eradicate blood cancers, design antisense oligonucleotides to silence harmful genes, and construct highly specific antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). Yet, the promise of these revolutionary modalities consistently hits a physiological wall. The fundamental bott

Standard treatment for tendon injuries often means injections that wear off quickly or drugs that go through your entire body, causing side effects. What if we could place a tiny "drug depot" right at the injury site that lasts for weeks? 🏥 Our team at the Wyss Institute has developed a new tough composite hydrogel that does exactly that. By harnessing the power of clay nanoparticles, this gel holds a huge dose of medicine and releases it only where it’s needed—triggered by

Executive Summary Therapeutic angiogenesis offers a powerful pathway for treating ischemic conditions, yet its clinical translation has been consistently hindered by a major biological hurdle: age-related impairment of tissue regeneration. Traditional single-growth factor therapies often struggle in senescent microenvironments because the body clears the therapeutic signals before the compromised tissue can mounted an effective angiogenic response. Our pivotal study published

Breaking down cancer cells to build a better vaccine? 🧫🧬 We previously found a clever way to improve personalized cancer immunotherapies. Traditionally, scientists use "tumor lysate" (broken down cancer cells) to teach the immune system what to fight. The problem? Lysate doesn't always trigger a strong immune response. Enter "Reduced Cancer Cells" (RCCs). In this study, we mechanically disrupted cancer cells into tiny, membrane-enclosed vesicles. Because they are packaged l

An animation to accompany our "Modular biomaterials vaccine technology protects against multiple pathogens and septic shock" paper, where we describe the development of ciVAX (Composite Infection Vaccine), a modular, injectable biomaterial scaffold designed to provide broad-spectrum protection against lethal bacterial infections and sepsis. Full report @ https://is.gd/CzSnuk #sepsis #vaccines #Biomaterials #medtech #science #publichealth #pathogenX #pandemics

Our "Modular biomaterials vaccine technology protects against multiple pathogens and septic shock" paper describes the development of ciVAX (Composite Infection Vaccine), a modular, injectable biomaterial scaffold designed to provide broad-spectrum protection against lethal bacterial infections and sepsis. Full report @ https://is.gd/CzSnuk #sepsis #vaccines #Biomaterials #medtech #science #publichealth #pathogenX #pandemics Core Technology: How ciVAX Works The vaccine is no

Our recently published article entitled "Kinetics of De Novo Bone and Bone Marrow Niche Formation With Hybrid Click Cryogels", explores strategies to rebuild the bone marrow environment to improve the success of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Full report @ https://is.gd/1tleYm Main Objective The study addresses the problem of damaged bone marrow niches following irradiation, which often leads to delayed immune reconstitution and HSCT failure. The researchers