The Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT

Probing Enzyme Activity with Nanosensors

Using MIT ingenuity to create knowledge, tools, and treatments to fight cancer

How We Do It 

Our Research Areas

From fundamental discoveries to engineering advances, we strategically pursue five areas of research that, across tumor types, are critical for rapid progress toward defeating cancer.

Detection & monitoring  
Metastasis  
Immunology & immunotherapy  
Nano-based drugs  
Precision medicine  

News

Inside Passage

Science Translational Medicine

July 25, 2022

The Irvine Lab is developing an intranasal vaccine that can bypass multiple barriers in the nasal cavity and activate a frontline defense against mucosally-transmitted pathogens. Such immunization strategies are much needed across the infectious disease landscape but are limited by poor uptake across mucosal surfaces. In a paper appearing in Science Translational Medicine, the researchers describe how they use the naturally-occurring protein albumin to chaperone vaccine components across the mucosal lining and into the nasal-associated lymphoid tissues where they can generate an effective immune response. The work is also featured in the 2022 Image Awards exhibition.

Vaccine Technology Gets a Boost

MIT News

Biodegradable core-shell microparticles developed by Jaklenec and Langer Lab researchers could be used to administer self-boosting vaccines or combination cancer therapies.

Cross-Presented and Accounted For

MIT Koch Institute

The Spranger and White Labs have developed a method that, for the first time, surveys the number and types of antigens cross-presented by dendritic cells.

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