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Black and white photo of a bearded man in very 70s apparel standing in front of a banner with "David Baltimore" and the mirror image text'

Remembering David Baltimore

MIT Koch Institute

September 8, 2025

With sadness, the Koch Institute marks the passing of Professor David Baltimore. A founding faculty member and formative influence behind the MIT Center for Cancer Research, he was not only a ground-breaking researcher but also a compelling and thoughtful voice for science. 

His discovery of reverse transcriptase changed the prevailing scientific dogma, earned him a 1975 Nobel Prize, and directly enables work in life sciences and biomedical laboratories everywhere. His decades-long advocacy work impacted national policy debates on topics such as recombinant DNA research, the AIDS epidemic, and genome editing.

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Showing 51–60 of 660 stories

An upgrade for glioblastoma therapy

MIT Koch Institute

March 10, 2025

New nanoparticles from the Hammond and Straehla groups bolster a technique for delivering therapeutics to brain tissues and improve treatment for glioblastoma. Combined with localized, convection-enhanced delivery, their nanoparticle designimproved targeting, distribution and retention of nanoparticles andtherapeutics within the tumor. In a Journal of the American Chemical Society study, the approach strongly outperformed both free drug and another version of the drug to significantly extend survival.

Dual duty microneedles

Nature Materials

March 6, 2025

A new Jaklenec lab study published in Nature Materials demonstrates novel microneedle patches that can be applied to the skin to deliver mRNA drugs and store billions of bits of anonymous and reliable information. This technology could be used to enhance healthcare in low resource settings, while addressing critical challenges related to  reliability and privacy of traditional paper and digital database systems for patient information.

Changing the math on drug delivery

MIT Koch Institute

March 4, 2025

Louis DeRidder, a graduate student in the Langer and Traverso groups, details his journey to a career in biomedical research. Inspired by a childhood medical emergency and a high school shadowing program, he is now a driving force in a Bridge Project team developing CLAUDIA, a closed-loop drug delivery system designed to tailor doses of chemotherapy to individual patients for maximum safety and effectiveness.

Science on the menu

MIT News

March 3, 2025

MIT hosted its annual “Breakfast with Scientists,” where some of the nation’s most talented high school researchers met with with leading scientific minds, including KI faculty members Amy Keating, Kristen Knouse, and Phillip Sharp. Student delegates were convened in Boston for the American Junior Academy of Science conference, held alongside the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting.

Balancing game for brain cancer treatment

Eureka Alert

February 26, 2025

A collaborative study creates a detailed picture of immune programs in important brain tumor cells and how their relative expression can predict immunotherapy response and overall survival. The study, published in Nature and supported by the Ludwig Centers of MIT and Harvard, and McGill University, showed that dexamethasone, commonly prescribed to brain cancer patients to reduce swelling, suppresses the immune system for weeks after administration and can inhibit immune activity and immunotherapy response.

Tardi-grade A science

MIT News

February 26, 2025

About 60 percent of cancer patients in the U.S. receive radiation therapy, which can have severe side effects. In a study published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, a team led by Giovanni Traverso discovered that a protein from tardigrades (microscopic "water bears") can protect human cells from radiation damage, minimizing treatment side effects.

Solving the puzzle of immune evasion

MIT News

February 26, 2025

Stefani Spranger’s work is focused on uncovering why some tumors evade the immune system’s attack. For example, her latest research, published in Cancer Immunology Research, reveals that lung cancer cells expressing SOX2 can block CD8+ T cells, undermining checkpoint blockade therapy. “By understanding these resistance mechanisms, we can develop smarter immunotherapies to outmaneuver cancer,” says Spranger.

AI in Action 

Forbes

February 26, 2025

Assessing promise versus prudence for AI in healthcare, Forbes highlighted Regina Barzilay's research showing AI can reliably improve breast cancer detection rates by 20% without increasing false positives. In a recent interview with Cancer Network, Barzilay discussed how AI’s proven ability to improve cancer detection rates in both breast and lung cancer screening may eventually push for updates to outdated protocols.

Koehler to lead MIT HEALS

MIT Office of the President

February 21, 2025

Congratulations to Angela Koehler on being named director of the MIT Health and Life Sciences Collaborative (MIT HEALS). MIT HEALS was established last year to bring together researchers from across the Institute to innovate new solutions to urgent challenges in health care. Koehler will be joined by two associate directors: Department of Biology professor Iain Cheeseman and Department of Biological Engineering professor Katharina Ribbeck.

Splice of life

MIT News

February 20, 2025

The Burge lab has discovered a new type of control over RNA splicing, a process critical for gene expression. Appearing in a new Nature Communications paper, their study sheds light on how this control mechanism can go wrong—and serve as a potential therapeutic target—in acute myelogenous leukemias and other diseases.