How BIIE's Technology Stack Integrates Immune Engineering Disciplines

Stephen Wilson, PhD, CEO and executive director of the Botnar Institute of Immune Engineering (BIIE), spoke to BioPharm International® about the institute's growth timeline, its approach to global clinical translation, and how its research groups combine technologies into an integrated immune engineering platform in this second interview segment. The institute is establishing a new research facility in the Switzerland Innovation Park Main Campus, housed within the Basel Area Life Sciences Supercluster in Basel, Switzerland.

Dr Wilson explains how BIIE, backed by an endowment funding at least 15 years of operation, is in a rapid growth phase expected to reach approximately 250 employees and 12 to 15 research groups within roughly 3 years. He describes that scale as the institute's "critical mass"—the concentration of immune engineers and projects needed to function as an effective incubator.

How does BIIE combine multiple technologies into a single immune engineering platform?

Dr Wilson says that BIIE's near-term priority is establishing active partnerships in the Global South and low- and middle-income countries. The institute aims to work with regional partners to identify clinical priorities and address problems upstream in the development process, accounting for each region's regulatory and infrastructure conditions. Over an 8 to 10-year horizon, he expects the institute to participate in international consortia alongside other research institutions, medical providers, and industry partners.

Wilson illustrates BIIE's technology integration model using 3 faculty examples: a lab using clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats and synthetic biology to program cells; a systems immunology and computational lab enabling cell programming; and a mucosal immunology lab specializing in oral vaccine translation.

"If you were to put together a toolkit of the pieces you would need to really innovate upstream in immune engineering...that's the kind of technology stack that we have," Wilson says.

Explore more in segment 1 of Dr Wilson’s interview.

About the speaker

Stephen Wilson, PhD, CEO, Botnar Institute of Immune Engineering

Dr Wilson leads the Botnar Institute of Immune Engineering’s mission to advance global child and adolescent health through breakthrough immune engineering research. The institute brings together expertise across immunology, bioengineering, computational biology and artificial intelligence, with a strong focus on translating scientific discovery into real-world solutions. Its research is designed from the outset with the needs of underserved populations in mind, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. An immunologist and biotechnology executive with more than 30 years of experience, Dr Wilson previously served as executive vice president and chief operating officer of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology. Based in Basel, Switzerland, he is helping establish BIIE as a key part of the Basel Area Life Sciences Supercluster, one of the world’s leading hubs for biomedical innovation and research.