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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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Showing 31–40 of 656 stories

Where Universities Matter Most

MIT Sloan School

May 7, 2025

Universities are crucial to innovation—not just through research, but also training people who turn discoveries into patents, products, and startups. A new study from MIT Sloan School of Management and Copenhagen Business School shows that in US regions with low innovation activity, these university contributions can account for more than 10% of local patents and 14% of new inventors, an even stronger influence than in more economically productive areas. 

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.

Resistance mapping yields novel drug combination

Cell Systems

April 30, 2025

A new Cell Systems paper from the White lab identified mechanisms that enable resistance to cancer therapies, offering new opportunities to intervene for better patient outcomes. Mapping cell-wide signaling networks remodeled by therapy in unprecedented depth, the study reveals new insights into cancer cell plasticity and demonstrates a new drug combination repurposing a leukemia drug against melanoma. This work was supported in part by the MIT Center for Precision Cancer Medicine and a graduate fellowship from the Ludwig Center at MIT.

Brainstorming treatments for gliobastoma

The Tech

April 28, 2025

At the inaugural Glioblastoma Tumor Microenvironment Symposium on March 27, led by Koch Institute faculty member Forest White and Franziska Michor of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, national leaders in glioblastoma research explored strategies for advancing models, therapies, and collaboration to accelerate progress against the disease.

Regina Barzilay receives IEEE Medal

IBM

April 25, 2025

Regina Barzilay has received the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Frances E. Allen Medal for her groundbreaking work applying machine learning to medicine. Honored alongside Miklós Ajtai, Barzilay was recognized for using unexpected methods to advance computer science and for transforming how AI is used in clinical and scientific settings.

Shaking up the STATus quo

STAT News

April 23, 2025

STAT has named Nancy Hopkins to the 2025 STATUS List, recognizing her for both her innovative work using zebrafish as a cancer model and tireless advocacy for gender equality in science. While helping to make science a more viable career for women, Hopkins also contributed groundbreaking research in genetics and molecular biology.

Is There a Pill for That?

Wired

April 18, 2025

Syntis Bio, a spinout from the Langer and Traverso labs, has announced promising early data for its obesity pill, which mimics the effects of a gastric bypass surgery via a temporary coating in the upper intestine. Interest in controlling obesity has surged as research uncovers its roles in cancer and other diseases, and the new pill is aimed at offering more effective and personalized choices for patients. 

Making de-grade

MIT Koch Institute

April 17, 2025

CDK9 and MYC are protein targets for many cancers, but developing therapies has proved quite challenging. A Koehler lab study published in Cell Chemical Biology demonstrates a promising approach for controlling MYC via CDK9. The group developed a CDK9 PROTAC (proteolysis targeting chimera), a molecule that can be used to degrade, or break up, a specific protein and showed it overcomes a key paradox and potentially offers a broadly useful CDK9 strategy.

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.