Wilson Wong’s work has the “potential to transform how we treat serious diseases,” says Kenneth Lutchen, BU’s vice president and associate provost for research.

Innovation

Biomedical Engineer Wilson Wong Is Boston University’s Innovator of the Year

Cofounder of three biotech companies is pioneering new therapies for cancer and autoimmune disorders

At first, acute myeloid leukemia (AML) can feel like a cold that won’t go away. But the cancer can change gears quickly, turning aggressive and leaving patients weak and in pain. According to the American Cancer Society, more than 22,500 people in the United States will be diagnosed with AML this year—and around 11,500 will die from it.

In his Boston University lab, researcher Wilson Wong is developing engineered cells that could give clinicians a new weapon in treating AML. Now, in recognition of that research, the BU College of Engineering professor of biomedical engineering has been named the University’s Innovator of the Year.

His team is currently collaborating with biotechnology company Senti Bio, where Wong is a scientific cofounder, to refine and commercialize the potentially lifesaving therapy. Trained to take down cancerous cells without harming healthy ones, the engineered cells have already shown their potential in a clinical trial, says Wong, with more than a third of patients experiencing full remission.

It’s not his first breakthrough to make it to clinical trials or to help patients. The holder of more than 10 patents and author of over 100 peer-reviewed research papers, Wong is cofounder of three biotech companies that are pursuing new vaccines, autoimmune disorder therapies, and advanced cancer medicines. It’s the kind of track record that makes him a worthy winner of BU’s highest honor for innovators, says Kenneth Lutchen, BU’s vice president and associate provost for research.

“Dr. Wong’s work reflects the very best of what research can achieve,” says Lutchen, who presented Wong with the award at a special ceremony on Tuesday, May 5. “His efforts are helping to make advanced therapies more precise, accessible, and scalable, with the potential to transform how we treat serious diseases. Just as importantly, his leadership is helping move research more efficiently toward clinical application, with the potential to improve patient outcomes and broaden access to new treatments.”

Founded in 2010, the Innovator of the Year award is given to researchers who’ve “translated world-class research into an invention or innovation that benefits humankind,” according to the award’s site. 

“I’m very happy to be honored, but it’s more of a recognition for the work my team has done and the collaborators I have,” says Wong, who’s also a member of the BU Biological Design Center. “It’s a spotlight on their work.”

Much of Wong’s research is driven by synthetic biology, which involves engineering biological systems that can then be directed to solve problems in medicine and industry. He calls it a more sophisticated form of genetic engineering. “There are a lot of engineering principles, at least in spirit, in programming cells to do things like sense certain signals, then do a very rudimentary computation and perform an outcome.”

The AML therapy, for example, is trained to differentiate between bone marrow and cancer cells, Wong says. Bone marrow cells express (turn on) molecules called protective antigens, but cancer cells don’t. The new therapy is engineered to spot cells where antigens are missing—the cancerous ones—and attack only those cells. (Wong and his team recently published a new study on that work in Cell Systems.)

In another project, Wong and his team have been working on a method to fine-tune one of the most advanced immune cell–based cancer treatments, CAR T-cell therapy. Although a powerful treatment option, CAR T-cell therapy can come with debilitating, sometimes fatal, side effects. Wong invented a way to include a safety switch, so therapy cells can be switched on while they fight cancer, then off before they cause any major side effects.

When teaching his students how to foster their own innovative ideas, Wong encourages them to think early about how it might be implemented. Ultimately, to make a difference, any idea has to be cost-effective and easy to use. “It’s good to innovate, but economics, delivery, convenience, all of these things matter,” says Wong. “Every time a student comes to me with an idea, I say, ‘That’s cool, what’s next?’ I don’t play chess well, but you don’t just think about the next step, you think four or five moves ahead.”

He also pushes them to get comfortable with failure; most breakthroughs are built on dozens, even hundreds or thousands, of experiments.

“I love sports, and in baseball, the best players hit 30 percent of the time, so they miss 70 percent of the time,” says Wong. “In science, nobody is keeping track of how many times you fail. Fail fast, try as many different ideas as you can, weed out the ones that don’t work.”

His own current focus is on ribonucleic acid (RNA) therapies, capitalizing on the molecules our bodies use to carry and implement genetic instructions. Wong recently cofounded a company, Keylicon Biosciences, to develop therapeutics using a type of RNA called self-amplifying RNA (saRNA). In a recent study, Wong and his BU colleagues found saRNA could be used to make a more effective COVID vaccine; the technology could also have potential in vaccines for other infectious diseases, including Ebola, and even cancer.

In addition to acknowledging his team and collaborators for their support in earning him the Innovator of the Year award, Wong gives his final shout-out to those whose roles in keeping the University’s research running often go unsung.

“It’s the administrators who help in the background—grant administrators, people at the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, Institutional Review Board, Institutional Biosafety Committee, and In Vivo Imaging Core Facility,” he says. “I can’t do anything without them—you have no idea how much I depend on them.”