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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

September 8, 2025

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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Menu for Cancer Research

Chemical and Engineering News

September 17, 2022

Matt Vander Heiden spoke to Chemical & Engineering News about the complex relationship between diet and cancer. The conversation covers emerging research showing that precise nutritional approaches could restrict tumor growth or improve treatment response. While diet alone is unlikely to a cure cancer, Vander Heiden said “it can make a difference, and we need to do the studies to figure that out.”
 

Cancer Moonshot Lands in Boston

MIT Koch Institute

September 13, 2022

On the 60th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s landmark ‘Moonshot’ speech, President Biden came to Boston to recommit the country to the Cancer Moonshot project. At the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Biden spoke of his determination to ‘supercharge’ the Cancer Moonshot project and highlighted many strategies for improving cancer prevention, detection, and treatment. Many of the innovations that he spoke of are deeply rooted in our research initiatives here at the Koch Institute. Koch Institute Director Matt Vander Heiden, who attended the event alongside many of our collaborators and partners, said he was most inspired by the goal to reduce mortality by 50% over the next 25 years: “While  President Biden’s goal is ambitious, it is in reach and should be done–our cancer patients and their families need us to bring our best and boldest thinking to meet the challenge."  

Bravissimo, Bob!

ABC News

September 12, 2022

Robert Langer won a 2022 Balzan Prize in recognition of his pioneering research in biopolymers and biomaterials, paving the way “for breakthroughs in the controlled release of macromolecules with many medical applications.” The prizes will be awarded by Italian President Sergio Mattarella in November in Rome.

Trace to the Primaries

MIT News

September 1, 2022

In rare cases, a cancer cannot be traced back to its tissue of origin using available diagnostic tools, leaving patients and oncologists few options for treatment. A new deep-learning approach from the Garg Lab may help classify these cancers of unknown primary by taking a closer look at developmental gene expression patterns, which are often revived or disrupted in cancer cells. Researchers trained the model on a map of correlations built from two cell atlases, one cataloging gene expression data for different tumor types and the other tracing various developmental trajectories for embryonic cells. The model, described in Cancer Discovery, can identify cancer types with a high degree of sensitivity and accuracy.

Faculty Fanfare

MIT Koch Institute

August 30, 2022

Congratulations to Angela Koehler and Ömer Yilmaz for receiving tenure from MIT. Koehler, whose laboratory builds chemical tools and methods for studying proteins that are dysregulated in cancer, is an associate professor in the Department of Biological Engineering as well as an Associate Director of the Koch Institute. Yilmaz is an associate professor in the Department of Biology. His work focuses on the effects of various diets in tissue regeneration, aging, and cancer initiation.

In other Biology news, KI member Amy Keating has been appointed head of the department. Her laboratory analyzes protein-protein interactions important for cell signaling and human health, including those implicated in cancer.

O, the Places You’ll Go

Merck

August 16, 2022

Orna Therapeutics, co-founded by Dan Anderson to engineer circular RNA therapies, announced a collaboration with Merck. Supported by an initial $150 million, the collaboration aims to develop vaccines and therapeutics for infectious diseases and cancer.

Infection Protection Detection

MIT News

August 9, 2022

KI researchers led by hematologist/oncologist and Charles W. (1955) and Jennifer C. Johnson Clinical Investigator Hojun Li have patented a blood-based lateral flow test to measure the level of Sars-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies. The technology, for which the team is currently seeking manufacturing partners, provides valuable insight to inform decision-making around Covid-19 precautions—particularly for vulnerable patient populations—and can be customized to detect immunity against existing and future variants. The work, which was funded in part by the Holloway Foundation, was published in Cell Reports Methods. Read more at STAT News or  USA Today or watch Li’s interview on CBS Boston.

Crypt Keepers

Cell Stem Cell

August 4, 2022

The Yilmaz Lab is shedding light on how cells within intestinal crypts support intestinal stem cell (ISC) function. In a study published in Cell Stem Cell, a team of researchers led by KI postdoc Nori Goto identified two types of cells that supply an important niche factor, which they found to be implicated in homeostasis and in regenerating ISCs after injury.

This study was supported in part by the MIT Stem Cell Initiative, the Koch Institute Frontier Research Program through the Kathy and Curt Marble Cancer Research Fund, and the Bridge Project.

Delivering Antigens with Cell Penetrating Peptides

PNAS

August 1, 2022

A Bridge Project-supported collaboration between KI members Darrell Irvine and Bradley Pentelute, and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Catherine Wu and David Reardon, suggests a strategy to boost efficacy of peptide vaccines in combination immunotherapies. Their approach, described in PNAS, increased T cell priming in lymph nodes through improved accumulation, trafficking, stability, and exposure.

Tumor Composition Notebook

Nature Genetics

July 28, 2022

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is notoriously hard to treat. In a study published by Nature Genetics, Jacks and Regev Lab researchers used single-cell analysis tools to categorize how different subpopulations of cells respond to therapeutic interventions. Their findings reveal new vulnerabilities in the PDAC landscape and opportunities for more personalized treatment in the clinic.