A new collaborative study from the Wyss Institute leveraged a “breathing” human lung alveolus chip model of influenza A infection developed in the group of Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., drug delivery platforms advanced by Natalie Artzi, Ph.D. and her group, as well as state-of-the-art CRISPR technology. The team designed CRISPR machinery targeting a strongly conserved sequence in IAV’s genome, packaging it up in tiny nanoparticles with affinity to lung epithelial cells, and delivering the loaded particles to lung epithelial cells lining a microfluidic channel in the Lung Chip that were infected with a pandemic IAV. They demonstrated that this system better mimics human IAV infection than other preclinical models and enables assessing the efficacy and safety of CRISPR RNA therapies in a more clinically relevant way than earlier approaches.

Bonn, October 15, 2025 – Will it be possible to treat severe kidney inflammation with fewer drugs in the future? A new study by the University Hospital Bonn (UKB), the University of Bonn, and the University of Hamburg gives cause for hope. The researchers show that even low, repeated doses of steroids could be enough to stop inflammation in particularly aggressive crescentic glomerulonephritis (cGN). The findings, which have now been published in Science Translational Medicine, could fundamentally change the treatment of many patients – and significantly reduce side effects.