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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 271–280 of 582 stories

Moderna Man

Forbes

November 17, 2021

Nature Biotechnology has named KI faculty member and Moderna co-founder Robert Langer among the top 20 translational researchers of 2020. In an interview with Forbes contributor Jack Kelly, Langer discusses his career path from struggling graduate student to MIT Institute Professor, reflecting on the the importance of mentorship, dreaming big, and learning how to deal with failure.

Stem Cells Loom Large as Aging Factor

MIT News

November 17, 2021

New research from the Amon Lab suggests that size is an important factor in cellular aging. The study, supported in part by the MIT Stem Cell Initiative and published in Science Advances, showed that blood stem cells grow larger as they age, and that as they grow in size, they become less able to generate new blood cells.

Fundamentally Curious

MIT Koch Institute

November 11, 2021

“The best science comes from those who are fundamentally curious.” So reads new lettering in the west wing of the Koch Institute Public Galleries, alongside a dedicated plaque celebrating the life and work of Angelika Amon. The unveiling ceremony, attended by Angelika’s family and close colleagues, also debuted a new exhibit celebrating MIT’s rich legacy of discovery science—an endeavor near and dear to Angelika’s heart—and announced the creation of the Amon Young Scientist Award to support exchange of ideas between MIT and international researchers.

Commonwealth Foundation for Cancer Research $25M gift to accelerate cancer research

MIT Koch Institute

November 11, 2021

The Commonwealth Foundation for Cancer Research has pledged $25 million to the Bridge Project, a collaboration between the Koch Institute and Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC). Together with matching gifts to be raised by MIT and DF/HCC, these funds will support projects near or already in the clinic, particularly those focusing on traditionally challenging classes of cancer drug targets or on more conventional targets found in rarer forms of cancer.

Stem Cells and Colon Cancer

Spectrum MIT

November 10, 2021

MIT Stem Cell Initiative investigators Ömer Yilmaz and Alex Shalek are investigating the impacts of high-fat diets on intestinal stem cells. Applying Shalek’s single-cell sequencing tools to three-dimensional colon tumor models called organoids developed in the Yilmaz Lab, their teams seek to understand how changes induced by high-fat diets in these stem cells can lead to cancer. The work of the MIT Stem Cell Initiative is supported by Fondation MIT.

Modeling the Mechanisms of Metastasis

MIT News

November 8, 2021

A team co-led by Roger Kamm has received a $7.8 million, five-year U54 grant to join National Institutes of Health’s inaugural group of Metastasis Research Network Centers. The team will study how metastasizing tumor cells adapt to mechanical stresses, as well as how these stressors impact cell fate, including cell death, dormancy, or proliferation.

Introducing the 2021-2022 Convergence Scholars

MIT Koch Institute

November 5, 2021

The Marble Center for Cancer Nanomedicine and the MIT Center for Precision Cancer Medicine are pleased to announce the 2021-2022 class of Convergence Scholars.  CSP Scholars receive training, mentors, insights, and inroads into careers in academia, industry, health care, the policy arena, and federal research or regulatory agencies.

Secret Gardener

Boston Globe

November 5, 2021

Ever since a flower box display for the Sean Collier Memorial was moved into the Koch Institute Public Galleries, arrangements of plants and decorations with themes ranging from dinosaurs to holiday cheer have appeared every month. The Boston Globe reveals the creative gardener to be Kathy Cormier, who heads the Hope Babette Tang (1983) Histology Facility within the Robert A. Swanson (1969) Biotechnology Center. 

A Checkup for Checkpoint Blockade

MIT News

November 2, 2021

Why do some tumors fail to respond to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapy? New research by the Spranger Lab, in collaboration with the Love and Wittrup Labs, suggests that non-responsive T cells may be dysfunctional due to differences in cytokine signaling during T cell activation in the tumor-draining lymph node. Their findings, published in Science Immunology, suggest that cytokine therapy could improve the tumors' response to ICB.

Shifting the Conversation Around Diet and Cancer

MIT News

October 26, 2021

Vander Heiden Lab researchers are applying new knowledge about cancer cell metabolism to better understand how low carbohydrate diets affect tumor development. By comparing a calorically restricted diet and a ketogenic diet in mouse models, the study found that the reduced availability of fatty acids played a major role in limiting tumor growth. These findings, published in Nature, do not recommend a particular diet, but rather, urge further investigation to determine how dietary interventions might be combined with existing or emerging drugs to advance patient care.

The work was supported in part by the Emerald Foundation, the MIT Center for Precision Cancer Medicine, and the Ludwig Center at MIT.