Harvard Office of Technology Development

Direct processing of saltwater for renewable energy storage

Technological advances have created an abundance of renewable energy sources (wind and solar), however, storing energy at scale is an essential part of transitioning to renewables and remains a critical challenge. The Nocera lab has developed a…

Investigators

Daniel Nocera
Samuel Veroneau

Cyborg organoids with fully integrated nanoelectronics

Researchers from the Liu lab at Harvard have grown organoids with fully integrated sensors that grow with the developing cells, giving them the unique ability to study the early stages of organ development. Organoids are 3D clusters of cells that…

Investigators

Jia Liu
Kewang Nan
Qiang Li

Scalable method for manufacture of thin film photovoltaic devices

Photovoltaic devices based on perovskites hold the potential of thin, light structures and very high efficiencies. However, the instability of perovskites in air leads to very short device lifetimes (on the order of hours), and thus silicone-based…

Investigators

Roy G. Gordon
Christina Chang
Luke Davis

Faster testing for illicit drugs

Researchers in the Whitesides lab have developed a portable and easy to use Magneto-Archimedes Levitation (MagLev) device for identifying the composition of illicit drug mixtures. A diamagnetic sample (in this case, an unknown drug mixture) is…

Investigators

George M. Whitesides
Christoffer Abrahamsson
Amit Nagarkar
Michael Fink
Daniel Preston
Markus Nemitz
Shencheng Ge
Joseph Bozenko

Electrically Controlled, Shape Morphing Dielectric Elastomer Devices

Soft materials, such as elastomers, can be used as actuators and provide much larger dimensional changes, compared to piezoelectric and electrostrictive materials. However, these dimensional changes in elastomers do not result in more complex shape…

Investigators

David R. Clarke
Ehsan Hajiesmaili

Printing Microparticles for Drug Delivery

A startup emerging from Jennifer Lewis' lab intends to commercialize a technology platform that can produce microdroplets of highly viscous fluids, with applications in drug formulation and delivery. (Image courtesy of the Lewis Lab.)Droplet-based…

Investigators

Jennifer Lewis

Novel annulation catalysts via direct C-H bond amination

Introducing functionality into unactivated C-H bonds, a ubiquitous group in organic molecules, remains a significant challenge due to the inertness of the substrate. Traditional synthesis strategies involve functional group exchange, an inefficient…

Investigators

Theodore Betley
Elisabeth Hennessy
Alexandre Mikhailine
Claudia Kleinlein
Yuyang Dong
Yunjung Baek

Use of bacterial probiotic to detoxify common herbicides and insecticides

Pollinators are crucial for the maintenance of wild plants and agricultural productivity; 80% of wild plants and up to 75% of main crops consumed by humans are dependent upon pollination. However, the global pollinator population is drastically…

Investigators

Robert Brucker

A New Electrochemical Method of CO2 Capture

There are increasing efforts worldwide to reduce reliance on fossil fuel-based energy. However, in parallel, other approaches are urgently required to deal with the problem of rising CO2 emissions.This invention “A New Electrochemical Method of CO2…

Investigators

Michael J. Aziz

Reconfigurable Structured Surfaces for Enhanced Security Features (Bank Note)

This technology from the Aizenberg lab describes a surface that is capable of protecting physical biometric information, such as fingerprints, by stochastically reconfiguring deformable microscale and/or nanoscale surface structures through dynamic…

Investigators

Joanna Aizenberg