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MIT Advocacy in Action at the AACR’s 2025 Hill Day

Koch Institute

May 29, 2025

MIT Koch Institute postdoc Meaghan McGeary traveled to Washington, DC to advocate for increased federal funding for cancer research as part of the annual American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Hill Day. Joining other early-career scientists in a mission to make more than 50 congressional visits in a single day, she shared her experiences with policymakers, emphasizing the importance of stable research funding.  

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Anders Sejr Hansen wins Edgerton Award

MIT News

April 16, 2025

Congratulations to Anders Sejr Hansen on winning the Harold E. Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award for exceptional distinction in teaching, research and service at MIT. The award recognizes Hansen’s remarkable productivity and passion for mentorship and career development for members of his laboratory.

Mapping cancer's ecosystem

MIT News

April 7, 2025

By treating diseased tissue as an ecosystem, Alex Shalek and team codeveloped MESA, a tool that reveals hidden interactions between cancer and immune cells. Their research, published in Nature Genetics,  shows that when applied to a diverse range of cancer tissue types, including colorectal and liver cancer, MESA uncovered critical hotspots of cellular activity, offering new insights into disease progression.

Cancer nanotech built to scale

MIT News

April 3, 2025

Paula Hammond and her team have developed a scalable method to mass-produce polymer-coated nanoparticles via layer-by-layer assembly. Their research, published in Advanced Functional Materials, shows that these nanoparticles target tumors directly—reducing chemotherapy side effects—and can now be produced more rapidly, advancing their potential for human clinical use.  

Cellular sleuths decode T cell targets

The Scientist

April 1, 2025

Immunotherapy changed the landscape of cancer treatment by equipping T cells to fight tumors, but even when these therapies are effective, their exact workings can be a mystery. The Scientist recently highlighted Michael Birnbaum’s Cancer Grand Challenges team, which leverages artificial intelligence and structural biology to decode T cell receptor recognition. The team, which includes Brandon DeKosky and Regina Barzilay, aims to enhance immunotherapy precision and broaden its potential for more effective cancer treatments.  

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.