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Linzixuan (Rhoda) Zhang holding the medal she won in the 2024 Collegiate Inventors Competition

Rhoda Zhang Wins 2024 Collegiate Inventors Competition

MIT News

November 5, 2024

Graduate student Linzixuan (Rhoda) Zhang has won the 2024 Collegiate Inventors Competition in both the Graduate and People's Choice categories. With advisors Robert Langer and Ana Jaklenec, Zhang and KI postdoc Xin Yang are developing metal-organic frameworks and other safe, sustainable nutrient stabilizing materials to address global micronutrient deficiencies. They are also launching MOFe™ Coffee, the first iron-fortified coffee.

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Showing 11–20 of 580 stories

A new mechanism for an old drug

MIT News

October 7, 2024

Since the 1950s, the chemotherapy drug 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) has been commonly used to treat many cancers with the understanding that it works by damaging DNA and inhibiting the synthesis of its building blocks. A new study from the Yaffe Lab shows instead that, when used clinically for colon and other gastrointestinal cancers, the drug actually kills tumor cells by interfering with RNA synthesis important for making new ribosomes.  The findings, published in Cell Reports Medicine, helps explain how treatments that combine 5-FU with DNA-damaging chemotherapies could be modified to increase patient survival, and can also inform the design of better drug combinations for these cancers. 

Padmini Pillai appointed as White House Fellow

The White House

October 7, 2024

Congratulations to Padmini Pillai! She’s been appointed to the prestigious 2024-2025 White House Fellows Program, where she will apply her immunoengineering expertise to key initiatives. Padmini is bridging the gap between discoveries in immunology and advances in biomaterial design to treat human disease. Watch the video to hear more about her project to force tumor cells to self-destruct using mRNA nanotherapy.


 

Nobel Prize goes to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun!

MIT News

October 7, 2024

Congratulations to alums Victor Ambros ’75 (VII), PhD ’79 (VII) and Gary Ruvkun for winning the 2024 Nobel Prize in the category of Physiology or Medicine! They won the award jointly "for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation."

Koch Institute predecessor the MIT Center for Cancer Research opened fifty years ago in 1974, just as Ambros was finishing his undergraduate degree in biology and beginning his graduate work in the laboratory of founding faculty member David Baltimore. In the 1980s, Ruvkun joined Ambros at MIT, both working as postdocs in the laboratory of H. Robert Horvitz, a David H. Koch Professor of Biology; both mentors are themselves Nobel laureates, in 1975 and 2002, respectively.
 

Congratulations to Sangeeta Bhatia!

MIT News

October 2, 2024

Sangeeta Bhatia is one of two inaugural recipients of the Kendall Square Association’s Founders’ Awards, along with Johnson & Johnson Innovation’s Michal Preminger. The awards were presented at the KSA Annual Meeting on October 1, accompanied by contributions to Science Club for Girls and Innovators for Purpose in their honor.

Less is more

MIT News

September 20, 2024

Irvine lab researchers developed a two-dose regimen that could make HIV vaccines more effective. In a study appearing in Science Immunology, the team reduced a schedule of seven escalating doses over two weeks to just two doses over one week. The new regimen is more practical for mass vaccination campaigns, but was similarly effective in mice at promoting strong antibody responses that will be critical for a successful HIV vaccine. The study uncovered biological mechanisms behind the vaccine response that could inform ongoing clinical trials and development of vaccines for other diseases.

The sweet science of tumor-fighting cells

MIT News

September 16, 2024

Laura L. Kiessling, Jeremiah A. Johnson, Alex K. Shalek, and Darrell Irvine have discovered a new strategy to reprogram immune cells for effective mobilization against cancer. In an ACS Publications study, the team coated virus-like particles with glycans to activate dendritic cells. These cells, in turn, sound the alarm to T cells, creating a robust anti-tumor response—laying the groundwork for a new generation of tumor vaccines.

The spleen’s crucial role in T cell tumor response

MIT Koch Institute

September 13, 2024

Immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapy can effectively treat some patients by enhancing T cell response to cancer—but it doesn't work for everyone. New research from Stefani Spranger, published in Science Immunology, points to the spleen as a critical site for reinvigorating anti-tumor immune response following ICB.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson Wins Yosemite-ACS Award

American Cancer Society

September 12, 2024

Congratulations to Dr. Jeremiah Johnson for winning the prestigious Yosemite-ACS Award! Johnson received the award for his pioneering research on overcoming therapeutic resistance through cell-specific targeting of the tumor microenvironment with antibody-bottlebrush prodrug conjugates. This award, part of a $6 million grant initiative by the American Cancer Society and Yosemite, recognizes his dedication and innovative approach to cancer treatment.
 

Welcome, Professor Henry!

MIT Koch Institute

September 8, 2024

Over the summer, Whitney Henry officially joined the Koch Institute faculty. Henry works to uncover the molecular factors that induce a cell to undergo ferroptosis, an iron-dependent form of cell death. Her aim is to develop adjuvant cancer therapies that target subpopulations of cancer cells that are highly metastatic and therapy resistant.

Cancer moonshot boosts CisionVision

PR Newswire

September 6, 2024

CisionVision, co-founded by KI’s Angela Belcher and former trainee and Convergence Scholar Jeremy Li, has secured up to $22 million from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) Precision Surgical Interventions (PSI) program. This grant, part of President Biden’s Cancer Moonshot, supports developing advanced imaging technology to help surgeons visualize critical anatomy without dyes.