Just over 10 years ago, in January 2009, Harvard University received what was, at the time, its largest philanthropic gift in history: $125 million. The money was from Hansjörg Wyss, and it would go toward "biologically inspired engineering." Today, that mission lives on in the Wyss Institute, a research center where scientists invent things like robotic bees and new ear tube technology.
"It takes inspiration from nature, which has had millennia to evolve and refine different systems," said Wyss spokesman Seth Kroll. "We apply that to various therapeutics, diagnostics, materials, and various applications."
The Institute is also intended to bridge what Kroll describes as a gap between traditional research and the business world: Much academic research never leaves academia, and commercial researchers don't always have access to the funding and institutions that academics benefit from. Products "don't make a difference if they don't get out of the lab," Kroll said. The Wyss Institute has spun out 27 startups and licensed several technologies, including swarming robots and a vibrating mattress for babies.
Wyss has two facilities, one in Boston and one in Cambridge. The Boston center, in the Longwood Medical area, has the upper hand in terms of amenities. It has three floors, a total of nearly 91K sq. ft., 252 lab benches, and a 1,120-sq.-ft. machine shop, along with offices, conference rooms, and coworking spaces. (The Cambridge facility is about 13K sq. ft.)
In many ways, the space Wyss occupies in Longwood stays true to its startup spirit, even though the Institute is part of Harvard. Take the booths sprinkled throughout the floors. When Wyss's founders were initially setting up, they met frequently in Bertucci's on Blackfan Circle, down the street from where the institute is now. "They had a lot of meetings in booths," said Lindsay Brownell, a science writer at the Institute. "So they said, 'We want to recreate that environment here, because we had so many good ideas in restaurant booths.'"
Check out those booths, lab spaces, and more in the photo gallery below.
Gallery
This story has been updated to reflect the correct number of startups the Wyss Institute has spun out.
