News & Media
Newsletter
Stay connected with the latest breakthroughs in biological design with The Biodesign Bulletin. This recurring digest highlights new research, major publications, center updates, and upcoming opportunities.
Current Edition
Investigating and advancing the medical applications of synthetic biology
The Wong Lab has built a design-driven research program in synthetic biology to develop innovative technologies for therapeutics and diagnostics that will help combat maladies like autoimmune disease and cancer. Professor Wilson Wong (Biological Design Center) talked about his research, his unexpected path to becoming a bioengineer, and his love of... More
A New Type of RNA Could Revolutionize Vaccines and Cancer Treatments
It all started in the lab. Two Boston University doctoral students, Joshua McGee (ENG’26) and Jack Kirsch (ENG’23), were creating and testing different types of RNA—strands of ribonucleic acid, built from chains of chemical compounds called nucleotides, that help carry out genetic instructions in cells. They were determined to see... More
Dunlop, Holmes, and Stringhini Earn ENG Honors
Named the 2024 Distinguished Faculty Fellows: Dean ad interim Elise Morgan has announced that three mid-career faculty members have been named Distinguished Faculty Fellows.
Modified Self-Amplifying RNA Provides Opportunities For New Vaccines And Treatments
Researchers Joshua McGee, lead author, senior authors Mark Grinstaff, Wilson Wong, and Florian Douam and other colleagues from Boston University solved a longstanding challenge with self-amplifying RNA. They used modified building blocks, called NTPs to build their saRNA. Once they established proof of concept in cells, they tested their method... More
Six BU Researchers Win Prestigious Early-Career Award to Advance Their Work
NSF CAREER awards recognize BU researchers innovating in biomedical engineering, artificial intelligence, molecular biology, and more: The prestigious, highly competitive NSF CAREER awards mark a significant achievement for early-career scientists and come with five years of continuous funding. All the researchers receiving funding this year are also laying the foundation... More
Boston Teens Pitch Biotech Concepts to BU “Investors” at Biological Design Center’s STEM Pathways Event
Seniors from New Mission High School compete in annual Shark Tank–like event, with help from BU undergrad and grad student mentors: Swallowing jitters and marshaling a semester’s worth of research, 11 teams of local high schoolers arrived at Boston University on a recent spring day to pitch products to a... More
Three BU Researchers Elected AAAS Fellows. World’s largest scientific society gives lifetime honor to BU biologist, engineer, and physicist
Being named an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow puts scholars in distinguished company—and a trio of Boston University researchers have just been selected for the honor. Electrical and computer engineer Siddharth Ramachandran, physicist Bradley Lee Roberts, and biologist Daniel Segrè have been named AAAS Fellows for... More
Speeding the Healing of Wounds in Old Age
Professor Jeroen Eyckmans has received a $2 million grant from the Hevolution Foundation to address the urgent clinical challenge of repairing non-healing skin wounds in the elderly: With an eye toward developing more advanced treatments, many scientists are attempting to better understand the wound healing process and what precisely underlies... More
Early Career Excellence. Professor Rabia Yazicigil Recognized By NSF and BU College of Engineering
Her NSF-award-winning project, entitled “Secure Miniaturized Bio-Electronic Sensors for Real-Time In-Body Monitoring,” focuses on real-time in-body monitoring of inflammatory processes in the gastrointestinal tract. The current standard for monitoring the GI tract relies on invasive endoscopic biopsies or non-real-time stool analysis. She aims to develop “inexpensive and non-invasive miniaturized ingestible... More
This Is Something I Can Do. Diverse high school students get hands-on, real-world lab experience at BU through STEM Pathways
If it were an ordinary summer, teenager Nicolas Rojas Taborda would “probably just be at home,” he said one weekday in July 2023, “or maybe working a part-time job.” Instead, Taborda and ten other Boston-area high school students spent five weeks working full-time in the labs of BME faculty researchers Alex... More