Wyss Institute lands $131 million gift from founder

Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering today announced a donation of  $131 million, the latest gift from its founding entrepreneur and namesake, Hansjörg Wyss.

Wyss Institute researchers draw on design principles from nature to solve some of the world’s most complex challenges in healthcare and the environment, and the institute commercializes those solutions. Among their more recent medtech-related discoveries:

• Wound dressings that can speed up healing and improve tissue regeneration using a protein commonly found in plants and animals.
• An additive manufacturing technique for soft electronics called hybrid 3D printing.
• A valve-shaped nanofiber network that replicates the mechanical and chemical properties of a native heart valve extracellular matrix.
• A method to program microbial cells into living devices that can produce drugs, fine chemicals and biofuels and detect disease-causing agents.

“Hansjörg Wyss has helped to expand what we know and what we can accomplish across a wide range of disciplines,” said Harvard University President Larry Bacow in a news release. “The advances that his generosity has enabled will change the future for countless people. His third gift to support the work of the Wyss Institute will ensure the continued success of our extraordinarily talented faculty and staff, as well as create new opportunities for collaboration and growth. We are deeply grateful for his support.”

Wyss has given the university more than $400 million over many years, including $125 million in 2009 to establish the institute and a second gift in 2013 to continue its support.

“When talented, creative people are given the freedom to work together across disciplines, there are few problems they cannot solve,” Wyss said. “In the last decade, the Wyss Institute has made breakthrough after breakthrough to improve medicine and to apply the latest science to the betterment of peoples’ lives. I am happy to continue my support for the Wyss Institute and Harvard and look forward to seeing what the Institute discovers and creates in the years ahead.”

Wyss’s support for the Institute’s unique model — an interdisciplinary collaboration among scientists and engineers from disparate fields along with expert staff with industrial experience—has led to more than 2,600 patent filings, 53 licensing agreements, 29 startups, and numerous industry collaborations, according to Harvard.