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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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Moles Meet Machine Learning

Technology Review

July 22, 2021

KI member Regina Barzilay continues her work to improve early cancer detection through machine learning algorithms. In an article published in Science Translational Medicine, Barzilay and colleagues describe the training and use of a deep convolutional neural network to compare markings on patients' skin to identify signs of pre-cancerous lesions.

mRNA Vaccines Beyond Covid

National Geographic

July 21, 2021

Covid-19 has brought substantial attention to the use of messenger RNA, or mRNA, as a tool for training the body to fight disease. KI member Daniel Anderson speaks with National Geographic about the application of this technology in cancer therapy—a longstanding research interest in his lab. His message? Therapeutic mRNA vaccines delivered via nanoparticles could offer great flexibility in helping the immune system identify and attack tumor cells across a wide range of cancer types.

Promoter Sequence

MIT Koch Institute

July 1, 2021

Congratulations to Scott Manalis, Professor of Biological and Mechanical Engineering and Associate Department Head Biological Engineering, who has been appointed a David H. Koch Professor of Engineering. Manalis is the second person to hold the David H. Koch (1962) Inaugural Chair in Engineering; he succeeds Paula Hammond, who was recently named an Institute Professor, the highest honor bestowed on MIT faculty members. Though the timing is coincidental, it is fitting that the transition of this chair—created for the dedication of the Koch Institute in 2011—should take place during our anniversary year.

The KI is also pleased to congratulate several more faculty members on their promotions and new appointments: Alex Shalek has been granted tenure in the Department of Chemistry. Michael Birnbaum has been promoted to associate professor in the Department of Biological Engineering and Bradley Pentelute to full professor in the Department of Chemistry. In addition to his recent promotion to full professor, Matthew Vander Heiden has been appointed as the Lester Wolfe (1919) Professor of Molecular Biology.

Parsing Paraffin-Embedded Tissue Samples

Cancer Research

July 1, 2021

By combining bench and computational methods, the White Lab has created powerful techniques for analyzing cell signaling processes and identifying potential cancer therapy targets and drug combinations. Yet these techniques often require more tissue than is available in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue samples, one of the most widely available forms of preserved biopsy and tumor tissue. However, the researchers have developed an approach, published in Cancer Research, that collects data from FFPE samples with the same sensitivity as from less common, but larger frozen samples. With Mayo Clinic collaborators, the team was also able to identify patient-specific, cancer-driving signaling molecules in FFPE samples of breast and lung tumors. These findings suggest that this method can provide direct translational insight from analysis of FFPE specimens, and open huge repositories of patient samples to further study.

A Genetic Enhancer and a Scholar

MIT News

June 30, 2021

KI member Anders Hansen joins the 2021 class of the Pew-Stewart Scholars Program for Cancer Research. This early-stage career award honors and promotes cutting-edge research into the development, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer. Hansen’s work will explore the interactions between genetic elements known as enhancers and their target genes, focusing on c-Myc, a gene commonly overexpressed in cancer.

KI Welcomes New Executive Director

MIT Koch Institute

June 28, 2021

Jane Wilkinson is the new Executive Director of the Koch Institute. Building on her 20+ years of experience in scientific operations and alliance management at the Broad Institute, Cereon Genomics/Monsanto, and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Genome Center, Wilkinson will oversee the KI's overall outreach program, helping to build and manage collaborative interactions between the KI and academic, industry, and clinical institutions within and outside of MIT. She looks forward to meeting and working with the Koch Institute's talented community of researchers, collaborators, administrators, and friends.

Fate Accompli

Globe Newswire

June 28, 2021

Fate Therapeutics, founded by Rudolf Jaenisch, reported positive data from their ongoing Phase 1 trial of FT516, a natural killer cell-based cancer immunotherapy engineered using an induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) platform. Eight of 11 patients with B-cell lymphoma responded favorably to the treatment, with six achieving a complete response.

Culture Club

MIT Koch Institute

June 27, 2021

Introducing “Let’s Get to Know... Celebrating Diversity at MIT,” a podcast that invites Koch Institute members from different backgrounds to share their stories and the music, food, literature and more from their respective cultures. Join host Neel Bardhan to learn about Mongolian metals bands with fellow Belcher Lab trainee Uyanga Tsedev, the joys of cooking (and eating) pollo guisado with Building 76 custodian Kameron Santana, and finding a career while washing the lab dishes with KI director Matt Vander Heiden. 

Lodish Means Business

MIT News

June 24, 2021

Congratulations to Harvey Lodish and Hemann Lab graduate student Kate Koch on winning a 2021 MITx Prize for Teaching and Learning in MOOCs for 15.480x (The Science and Business of Biotechnology), an interdisciplinary course that emphasized understanding the science behind biotech while exploring novel business structures and financing methods.

Fittingly, two Lodish-founded companies report positive news this month: Epizyme launched a new diagnostic program for follicular lymphoma patients and Rubius dosed its first patient in a Phase 1/2 trial of a combination therapy for advanced solid tumors.

Strand and Deliver

Endpoints News

June 23, 2021

Strand Therapeutics, co-founded by KI members Darrell Irvine, Ron Weiss, and Weiss Lab alum Jacob Becraft (recently named among Technology Review’s 35 Innovators Under 35), has emerged from stealth with $52 million Series A capital. Strand is developing a platform for creating programmable, self-amplifying mRNA vaccines, and aims to bring its first drug, an immunotherapy for solid tumors, to the clinic in 2022.