With a proposal to develop smart microbial therapies to treat inflammatory bowel diseases, a team of Boston University researchers has landed an Innovator Award from the Kenneth Rainin Foundation. Assistant Professor Miguel Jimenez (BME, MSE), Assistant Professor Liang Hao (BME), and their doctoral students will receive at least $200,000 over one year to create a next-generation microbial therapy, taken in pill form, that would target inflammation without causing harmful side effects.

Read more here.

Biological Feedback Control is an exciting new program forming an interdisciplinary community of students and faculty that combines the study of the engineering principles of feedback control with investigations on how biological systems self-regulate, adapt, heal, and evolve.

The SB2 (Synthetic Biology & Biotechnology) and BFC (Biological Feedback Control) training grants support PhD students and provide career preparation training.

We’re delighted to join this group of talented and enthusiastic scientists working to precisely design biological systems and look forward to working together.

“At the Biological Design Center, our goal is to examine life’s intricate processes by unlocking the underlying design logic of biological systems. We use biological “building blocks” to create cells, organisms, and functions not found in nature—thereby innovating new applications in biotechnology and medicine.”

Explore the center here.

Nature Reviews Bioengineering has published Liang’s comment written with Natalie Boehnke discussing strategies for supporting career trajectories for women in STEM through structure for childcare responsibility.

The SB2 training program in Synthetic Biology and Biotechnology focuses on the cultivation of skills for engineering complex biological systems, translating biotechnologies, and professional interdisciplinary work.

Our lab will collaborate with other labs on a grant from Open Philanthropy to develop nanosensors for point-of-care test to distinguish viral and bacterial pneumonia in children, a crucial factor in clinical decision making. This project will be a joint collaboration between our lab, the Bhatia Lab, the Tadesse Lab, and the team of Dr. Kristin Moffitt of Boston Children’s Hospital.

The Hao Lab has been awarded a Faculty Starter Grant in Translational Medicine from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) Foundation, which will support research to develop diagnostic tools to predict treatment efficacy of bispecific T cell engager (BiTE) antibodies.

Dr. Hao’s recent paper, titled “CRISPR-Cas-amplified urinary biomarkers for multiplexed and portable cancer diagnostics”, details how polymers, DNA, and peptides combined in the design of a nano-scale sensor of tumors. This tool leverages unique protease signature of the tumor microenvironment and delivers a simple, portable test for urine samples. The work was recently featured in MIT News - “A simple paper test could offer early cancer diagnosis”.