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Tailor-made genes

MIT News

April 30, 2025

Katie Galloway and her team developed synthetic gene circuits that enable more precise control of gene therapy. Their research, published in Cell Systems, could lead to new treatments for fragile X syndrome and other diseases caused by mutations in a single gene, ensuring more safe and effective therapeutic outcomes.

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Showing 11–20 of 624 stories

The mechanisms of metastasis

Knowable Magazine

March 27, 2025

How do cancer cells spread? Knowable Magazine offers an accessible, in-depth look at metastasis and cancer metabolism, featuring KI director Matthew Vander Heiden. He discusses how his lab has shown that cancer cells thrive in familiar tissue environments, which may explain why primary tumors often metastasize to specific organs while avoiding others.

Watch LumiSystem at work
 

NBC Boston

March 24, 2025

NBC10 Boston reports that Lumicell’s real-time cancer cell detection system is transforming outcomes for breast cancer patients. A clinical trial of LumiSystem-assisted lumpectomies showed that the system helped surgeons find otherwise undetected cancer cells in 10% of patients. Without the system, 15-20% of patients need a second surgery to remove cancer cells left behind. Developed with early support from the Koch Institute Frontier Research Program and now commercially available, LumiSystem could be in use at Massachusetts General Hospital within a few months.

Crystal clear drug delivery solutions

MIT News

March 24, 2025

Giovanni Traverso and his team have developed injectable drug crystals for long-lasting, less painful delivery of contraceptives and disease treatments. A study published in Nature Chemical Engineering showed that the crystals released contraceptives at least twice as long as currently available injectable suspensions. Unlike other vehicles for longer-lasting release, the crystals do not require a difficult and painful large-gauge needle for injection.

Levine behind the scenes

MIT News

March 19, 2025

Stuart Levine co-leads the Robert A. Swanson (1969) Biotechnology Center’s Integrated Genomics and Bioinformatics core facility, bringing PhD-level education, expansive scientific and technological expertise, and hands on training opportunities to the table in support of researchers across more than 100 labs annually at the Koch Institute and MIT.

Levine and his team work with cutting-edge, finely tuned scientific instruments that generate vast amounts of bioinformatics data, and then use powerful computational tools to store, organize, and visualize the data collected, contributing to research on topics in cancer and beyond, from host-parasite interactions to proposed tools for NASA’s planetary protection policy.

An upgrade for glioblastoma therapy

KI News

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

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.