Adama Sesay on fixing issues with sensors and microsystems

If you happen to had requested Adama Sesay as a toddler what she wished to be when she grew up, the reply would have been a health care provider, an architect, and a firefighter. Now a Senior Engineer specializing in sensors and microsystems, chances are you’ll assume she’s gone in a very completely different course, however by following the passions that led her to these concepts – science, design, and saving lives – she’s discovered a profession she loves. On the Wyss, Adama is a member of the Superior Expertise Crew and works on a variety of initiatives that span from sensor-integrated Organ Chips to make medication safer to an enzyme that converts sugar to fiber to make meals more healthy, whereas concurrently main the Girls’s Well being Catalyst. Be taught extra about Adama and her work on this month’s People of the Wyss.

What initiatives are you concerned with?

I focus on biosensing, microfluidics, and microsystems, and my initiatives span over fairly a various space. The primary challenge I’ve been managing is a BARDA challenge, which is a federally funded challenge taking a look at integrating sensors to measure biomarkers like cytokines, from a lymph node tissue mannequin, or a lymphoid follicle (LF) Chip. On this challenge, I’ve principally targeting the instrumentation aspect, offering the precise {hardware} (which is a form of sensor-integrated cartridge) and retrofitting it right into a business Organ Chip system.

Adama Sesay, Senior Engineer II. Credit score: Wyss Institute at Harvard College

Then I’ve one other challenge the place we’re growing an enzyme-encapsulated particle that reduces sugar in meals as soon as it’s consumed, changing it to dietary fiber. Mainly, this may be a “good meals” ingredient, the place the enzyme is just activated when you devour it. That means, the meals tastes the identical, however the precise quantity of sugar your physique metabolizes is decrease.

I’m engaged on a 3rd challenge the place we’re growing and microfabricating a microfluidic Blood Clotting Chip to review clotting time for sufferers which have mesothelioma, a most cancers attributable to publicity to asbestos. We’re collaborating with Massachusetts Common Hospital and Boston Youngsters’s Hospital.

What are biosensors, microfluidics, and microsystems?

A biosensor is a tool that mixes a organic element with a sensor transducer and might measure a organic or chemical response by producing alerts to point the focus of the analyte, or element of curiosity, within the monitored pattern. Microfluidics refers to a system that has small channels that may transfer and ship low volumes of fluid. The idea is that fabrication-wise, a microfluidic channel is something that has dimensions within the micrometer vary. The benefit of microfluidics is you can ship very low volumes to completely different areas and manipulate these flows a traditional instance is a an Organ Chip. A microsystem gadget on this context takes it a bit additional and is the combination of sensors, microfluidics, and software. The three are a carefully built-in bundle.

What real-world issues do these initiatives handle?

With the BARDA challenge, we will use the LF Chips to watch the immune system’s response to various kinds of medication. We will use affected person samples to get time resolved knowledge in regards to the irritation response. Along with serving to display medication for security, this might assist us decide which therapies can be utilized on immuno-compromised sufferers or what a vaccine response can be in a sure inhabitants.

This illustration demonstrates the construction of the LF Chip that Adama is engaged on. Credit score: Wyss Institute at Harvard College

The sugar fiber challenge will assist handle America’s ever-growing issues with weight problems and diabetes. Regardless of these points, there’s a huge meals business right here that depends on refined sugars, particularly excessive fructose corn syrup. Along with these different points, excessive fructose diets contribute to metabolic syndrome. Plus, the American weight loss program is low in fiber. We began this challenge taking a look at tips on how to make meals extra pleasurable whereas additionally being accountable. Our enzyme encapsulation will hopefully handle diabetes and metabolic syndrome, whereas rising fiber, which can make individuals’s intestine microbiomes more healthy.

We hope to make use of the Blood Clotting Chip to know the clotting time and the thrombosis elements of mesothelioma. It will also be used as a diagnostic software. Understanding a affected person’s blood clotting issue is crucial after they go into surgical procedure, even past these affected by this illness. This turned much more obvious to me lately when my father wanted to have emergency surgical procedure, however they needed to wait till he may very well be off blood thinners for a time frame. If we might use this as a diagnostic check, surgeons would know when a affected person’s clotting issue was such that they have been prepared for surgical procedure.

What’s your particular position on the workforce?

I’m a Senior Engineer right here and a part of the Superior Expertise Crew, I lead the biosensing, microfluidics, and microsystems effort on the Wyss. I’m additionally chargeable for the microfabrication room and efforts, and work carefully with Pawan Jolly, who’s the lead on sensors. That entails however will not be restricted to analysis challenge administration, writing funding proposals, mentorship, and overseeing relationships with inner and exterior collaborator.

How are you serving to to advance girls’s well being on the Wyss?

One in all my greatest pursuits in the mean time is to construct up the Girls’s Well being Catalyst. In a spot just like the Wyss that’s taking a look at unmet wants, it’s pure that we’ve got numerous initiatives already in our pipeline devoted to girls’s well being as a result of therapeutics and diagnostics particularly geared toward girls’s well being points are one of many greatest unmet scientific wants on this planet. All this work is being accomplished inside our present Focus Areas. A lot of our researchers are extremely devoted to rising our information and discovering real-world options.

Adama and the opposite audio system on the Wyss’ occasion celebrating Girls on the Intersection of Science and Artwork on Worldwide Girls’s Day. Credit score: Wyss Institute at Harvard College

So, proper now we’re aiming to coalesce all these initiatives to deliver collectively our good scientists, clinicians, and expertise groups to advance analysis and make medication and gadgets to assist individuals. We intention to have the ability to spotlight these initiatives to draw exterior collaborators to work with our Wyss expertise translation engine, and at some point turn into a world-class beacon the place individuals wish to come and actually make advances in girls’s well being.

How are you serving to to bridge the hole between academia and business on the Wyss?

I’ve a various group of researchers on my workforce together with biologists, biotechnologists, biomedical engineers, and mechanical engineers who have a look at challenges very in another way, whereas I have a look at the economic want and see how we will translate the science into one thing to handle the gaps. I believe what it boils all the way down to is facilitating the communication between scientists and engineers on the analysis aspect and translating that acquired information into know-how, providers, and merchandise on the enterprise and industrial sides.

“I believe what it boils all the way down to is facilitating the communication between scientists and engineers on the analysis aspect and translating that acquired information into know-how, providers, and merchandise on the enterprise and industrial sides.”

– Adama Sesay

For instance, if I’m designing a diagnostic gadget, I’ll take heed to the scientists about how the basic biology works of their system and use my expertise in sensor growth, microsystems, and growing point-of-care gadgets to talk to extra virtually minded engineers about tips on how to construct the gadget, discovering a typical language between the 2. Then, we have to talk why this gadget is helpful to a enterprise viewers with the intention to efficiently commercialize it.

What introduced you to the Wyss?

I wished to be in a spot that was busy doing what I had been doing for some time in Europe, which is translational science. The primary place on my want listing was the Wyss Institute. I cherished the work happening right here; the organs-on-chips and the translational nature of the place. It’s fairly distinctive in its construction. So, I obtained in contact with individuals working right here, particularly in Donald Ingber’s lab, and I used to be fortunate that there was a place open after I utilized.

Members of Don Ingber’s lab, together with Adama, on the Wyss Retreat in 2022. Credit score: Wyss Institute at Harvard College

How has your earlier work expertise formed your method to your work at this time?

Beginning with my grasp’s and Ph.D., a lot of my work has centered on expertise switch. It’s formed my method to work as a result of it has taught me to speak to completely different individuals, deliver numerous viewpoints and abilities collectively, actually take heed to the place the issues are, and discover options. I believe typically, particularly earlier in your profession, it’s straightforward to assume that your thought is good, however on the finish of the day, it is perhaps a terrific expertise that’s arduous to translate right into a product. I’ve realized that you have to take your ego out of it, hear, and discover one of the best ways ahead, even when it isn’t your means. Having a crucial mass of latest information round you means you’ll at all times be on the forefront; you simply need to be open to attempting new issues and making the sum of the components higher than the person items.

What’s your greatest piece of recommendation for a tutorial scientist seeking to translate their expertise?

“Preserve a degree of curiosity and surprise. Be ready to maintain on bettering and studying.”

– Adama Sesay

Preserve a degree of curiosity and surprise. Be ready to maintain on bettering and studying. Don’t be discouraged in case you get knocked again, as a result of even when your first method doesn’t work, it’s since you undergo that and also you’re keen to get again up once more that you’ll succeed.

What impressed you to get into this area?

If you happen to had requested me what I wished to be after I was a child, I’d at all times say a health care provider, an architect, or a firefighter. A physician as a result of I actually appreciated science and I didn’t know there was anything on the market apart from that. My mother and father have been within the medical area, so I assumed that was it. An architect as a result of I appreciated artwork, and I like buildings. I assumed structure was the sensible solution to apply that. I used to be unaware there was a occupation known as an engineer. And a firefighter as a result of I take pleasure in being energetic and I assumed they have been so heroic. I simply admired them.

I spotted in a short time that none of these issues have been precisely for me, however I adopted the passions that led me to these concepts – science, design, and saving lives – and by doing what I like I discovered my solution to a profession in translational analysis centered on sensors and microsystems. If you happen to actually take pleasure in what you do, it doesn’t really feel like a job.

What continues to encourage you?

Making a distinction and dealing with a terrific workforce in a tremendous work surroundings. I believe that realizing that the individuals I’m working alongside are really having an impression, even when they’re not on my challenge immediately, may be very inspiring. It makes me really feel that I’m part of one thing that may trigger optimistic change in my lifetime.

“I believe that realizing that the individuals I’m working alongside are really having an impression, even when they’re not on my challenge immediately, may be very inspiring. It makes me really feel that I’m part of one thing that may trigger optimistic change in my lifetime.”

– Adama Sesay

When not on the Wyss, how do you prefer to spend your time?

I like curler skating. I began enjoying my clarinet once more, which I used to do after I was a teen, and that’s given me plenty of pleasure. I additionally like watching movies. My favourite latest movies have been All the things, All over the place, All at As soon as and The Girl King. All the things, All over the place, All at As soon as manages to be gentle whereas additionally touching some fairly thought-provoking ideas. I like the varieties of movies you can spend time speaking about. The Girl King, whereas it has confronted some criticism for being inaccurate, opens a dialogue about African historical past on a world stage between people whom audiences within the west have by no means recognized and even questioned about it. Though a few of these discussions is perhaps uncomfortable, not less than persons are starting to have them. Once more, I like a movie that begins a dialog.

What’s one thing distinctive about you that somebody wouldn’t know out of your resume?

My mom suffered from Alzheimer’s illness, and it lastly took her this previous Christmas. In her reminiscence, my sister and I are working in the direction of constructing a sensible metropolis in her village in Sierra Leone. To do that, we’re elevating consciousness and funding to construct an agricultural college for ladies and empower them to reap crops based mostly on new expertise that’s sustainable and applicable for the land, on condition that it’s a wildlife sanctuary space, and create companies from farming. Hopefully, by subsequent 12 months we will begin engaged on the curriculum for the varsity. We’re placing plenty of work into this, however we predict it’s a good way to honor our mom’s legacy and allow girls to get out of poverty and turn into future entrepreneurs.

What does it really feel prefer to be working in the direction of translating cutting-edge expertise that has the potential to have an actual and vital impression on individuals’s lives and society?

It feels nice to be a part of such a dynamic surroundings. I believe as an engineer and a expertise switch specialist, it’s the perfect of all worlds. I’m fortunate sufficient to have labored at some distinctive institutes in some superb international locations, however the Wyss is sort of particular in that we’ve got a crucial mass of world-class, high-impact initiatives ripe for translation. I’m in my fifth 12 months now and it’s been a terrific experience thus far. I’m wanting ahead to what comes subsequent.