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Moderna's mRNA vaccines take on cancer

New York Times

August 19, 2026

Moderna, co-founded by Bob Langer, announced that late-stage trials showed its mRNA cancer vaccine reduced the ​risk of melanoma recurrence and spread when used in conjunction with an immunotherapy called pembrolizumab—the first positive results for mRNA cancer vaccines and for combination therapies with pembrolizumab. Moderna is testing similar approaches against lung, breast, and pancreatic cancers with its partners.

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2026 Karches Prize winners recognized for exceptional mentorship 

MIT Koch Institute

November 13, 2026

Congratulations to the 2026 Peter Karches Mentorship Prize winners: Keith Eidell, Behnaz Eshaghi, Heaji Shin, and Grace Wolczanski. The prize is awarded annually to up to four Koch Institute postdocs, graduate students or research technicians who demonstrate exemplary mentorship of undergraduate researchers or high school students in their labs. 

Introducing the 2026 to 2027 Convergence Scholars

MIT Koch Institute

November 13, 2026

The Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research is pleased to announce the 2026-2027 awardees of the Convergence Scholars Program. Please join us in congratulating Azmain Alamgir, Guillermo Arroy Ataz, Manon Bulliard, Tina Huang, Vanessa Kelley, and Brett Pogostin.

MIT Future Fest puts the future on display

MIT News

October 6, 2026

MIT Future Fest kicked off Sept. 30 with “The Future Starts Here” at Kresge Auditorium, bringing together MIT President Sally Kornbluth, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, KI Marble Center for Cancer Nanomedicine Director Sangeeta Bhatia, and Noubar Afeyan, co-founder of Moderna with Bob Langer, for a conversation about the ideas and discoveries shaping what comes next. The festival also shone a spotlight on innovation with “The Biotech Maverick,” featuring biotech leader Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and former MIT President Susan Hockfield, and gave attendees a behind-the-scenes look at the Koch Institute through tours of the Nabel and Manalis labs.

New mRNA vaccine can take the heat

MIT News

October 4, 2026

Demonstrating an AI framework they developed, the Jaklenec and Langer Labs designed shelf-stable mRNA vaccines that could make treatments for Covid-19, cancer, and many other diseases more accessible. Described in Nature Biotechnology, the heat-tolerant mRNA vaccine could be distributed in places that lack expensive cold-chain infrastructure and adapted for novel administration methods, such as microneedle patches.

Tumor meets T cell

YouTube

October 4, 2026

As part of the Cancer Grand Challenges Team Matchmakers, the Birnbaum Lab is diving into the many billions of interactions between T cells and their targets to map out how T cells recognize tumors. Their work could help us understand why some treatments work and others don’t and lay the foundation for new therapies.

A star in drug delivery

Nature Communications

October 2, 2026

Inspired by origami, researchers in the Langer and Traverso Labs designed an ingestible capsule that unfolds in the stomach to deliver drugs over periods as long as three weeks. Described in Nature Communications, the device is suited for a wide range of therapies and could make long-acting drug delivery more accessible in areas with limited medical infrastructure. 

A sweeter way to preserve CAR-T cells

MIT News

September 28, 2026

The Jaklenec and Langer groups developed a new way to preserve CAR-T cells using naturally occurring sugars, reducing the need for chemical “antifreeze” typically used to protect cells during freezing. Their findings, published in Trends in Biotechnology, could help make CAR-T cell therapy more accessible by simplifying cell storage and shipping.

This work was supported by the Koch Institute’s Convergence Scholars Program and postdoctoral fellowships supported by the Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Fund for Cancer Research.

Finding purpose through research 

MIT News

September 21, 2026

“It was intense, but it gave me confidence that I could handle a research environment like MIT's,” says CUNY undergrad Marina Milea of the MIT Summer Research Program in Biology that brought her to the Jacks Lab. Milea investigated how lung cancers driven by KRAS mutations develop resistance to targeted therapies, gaining skills, knowledge, and independence under the mentorship of grad student Carrie Rodriguez. 

Meet the 2026 Amon Award Winners

MIT Koch Institute

September 8, 2026

Congratulations to the winners of the 2026 Angelika Amon Young Scientist Award: Karin Goldberg of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and Rubén López Sandoval of ETH Zurich in Switzerland. 

The KI and MIT communities and Amon Lab alumni, are invited to attend Goldberg’s presentation of her research at the Amon Award ceremony on Thursday, October 29, 2026 at 2:00 p.m. in the Luria Auditorium. She will present on “Beyond Protein Breakdown: New Insights into Proteasomal Degradation in Innate Immunity.”

The messenger RNA is in the medium

MIT News

September 4, 2026

The Blainey Lab developed a method for measuring a cell’s transcriptome without killing it, as current methods do. The technique, described in Cell, induces cultured cells to export mRNA via virus-like-particles. Researchers can repeatedly sample the culture medium over time to track changes in gene expression. The team has collaborated with the Griffith lab by collecting perfused media samples to apply their method to organ-on-a-chip devices, reducing the number of microfluidic platforms required for the experiment from 21 to three.