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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

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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Making the list for AI

Time Magazine

Regina Barzilay—recently named to the TIME100 list for her work on machine learning AI models to predict disease—shares insights into the present and future of AI and medicine. At the MIT Sloan School's Ideas Made to Matter blog, Barzilay explains three ways AI is currently empowering clinicians, from speeding up the mundane task of note taking to assisting with the complexities of reading images and providing tailored patient guidance. In Nature Biotechnology, Barzilay and her co-authors outline strategies for developing AI models that are capable of opening up vast classes of so-called "undruggable" targets for the discovery of new cancer therapies.

Ironing out nutritional deficiencies with coffee

MIT News

The Jaklenec and Langer labs have discovered a way to fortify foods with iron and iodine using metal-organic frameworks. The study, which appears in Matter, shows that these small, crystalline particles could possibly combat global malnutrion by keeping nutrients stable during cooking and storage. Their research builds on work that earned one of the paper's lead authors, Xin Yang and Linzixuan (Rhoda) Zhang, 2024 Collegiate Inventors Competition honors. 
 

Meet the 2025 Amon Award Winners

MIT Koch Institute

The Koch Institute at MIT is pleased to announce the winners of the 2025 Angelika Amon Young Scientist Award, Sourav Ghosh and Kotaro Tomuro. The prize was established in 2021 to recognize graduate students in the life sciences or biomedical research from institutions outside the United States who embody Dr. Amon’s infectious enthusiasm for discovery science.

Louis DeRidder receives Inventor Prize from NAI

National Academy of Inventors

Congratulations to Louis DeRidder on being recognized by the National Academy of Inventors with the Dr. Barry Bercu Biomedical University Inventor Prize! DeRidder wins the prize for for his work on CLAUDIA, developed as part of a Bridge Project team led by Robert Langer, Giovanni Traverso, and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's Doug Rubinson. This new closed-loop drug delivery system allows personalized and more accurate chemotherapy drug dosing.

Tracing cancer's family tree

MIT News

Jonathan Weissman and his group have developed PEtracer, a tool that reconstructs cellular family trees and maps their locations within tissues. Published in Science, the research reveals how tumors grow and evolve over time, showing how both intrinsic cell traits and environmental factors shape tumor progression.

AI Brings Hidden Cells Into Focus

MIT News

A Shalek lab research collaboration led by postdoc Bokai Zhu has developed CellLENS (Cell Local Environment and Neighborhood Scan), an AI-powered approach that uncovers hidden cell subtypes influencing immune responses in cancer. Published in Nature Immunology, the study reveals patterns of cell heterogeneity that could advance cancer immunotherapy.

Can your liver analytic multi-task?

MIT News

A research team, led by Jonathan Weissman, has developed Perturb-Multi, a new approach that simultaneously measures different downstream effects of genetic changes—including overall gene expression patterns, protein distribution, and cell structure—in intact liver tissue.  

Whitney Henry named HHMI Freeman Hrabowski Scholar

Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Whitney Henry has been named a 2025 HHMI Freeman Hrabowski Scholar. Her work focuses on ferroptosis, a form of regulated cell death with implications for cancer therapy. The award recognizes early-career faculty for exceptional research and commitment to advancing diversity in science. 

Strong and Stretchy

MIT News

A 2025 Koch Institute Image Awards winner, research lead by James U. Surjadi and Bastien F. G. Aymon reveals a 3D-printable metamaterial—inspired by collagen’s strength and flexibility—that offers new ways to study how cancer cells migrate through tissue.  

Density detector

MIT News

Scott Manalis, collaborating with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's Keith Ligon, has developed a technique to measure single-cell density for predicting whether immunotherapies will work in a patient or how a tumor will respond to drug treatment. This method, detailed in Nature Biomedical Engineering, originated as a project funded in part by the MIT Center for Precision Cancer Medicine.