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Four headshots of winnners of the 2024 Karches Prize - Shandon Amos, Christina Cabana, Ivan Pires, and Jason Yu.

Introducing the 2024 Karches Prize winners

January 24, 2025

Congratulations to the winners of the 2024 Peter Karches Mentorship Prize — Shandon Amos, Christina Cabana, Ivan Pires, and Jason Yu.

The Peter Karches Mentorship Prize is awarded annually to up to four Koch Institute postdocs, graduate students or research technicians who demonstrate exemplary mentorship of undergraduate researchers or high school students in their labs. The prize allows the Koch Institute community to celebrate and recognize the critical role that mentors play, both personally and professionally, in the early stages of a scientist’s career.

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Showing 111–120 of 595 stories

Blending Biology and AI

MIT News

September 28, 2023

Machine learning, AI and molecular biology come together for Yaffe Lab undergrad Charvi Sharma in Course 6-7, one of four new majors integrating data science with a second field. Sharma sees computer science and medicine dovetail through her work as an undergraduate researcher to understand how signaling pathways contribute to a cell’s ability to escape from cell cycle arrest after DNA damage. The data science and analysis skills she has honed through computer science courses help her understand and interpret the results of her research. She expects those same skills will prove useful in her future career as a physician.

Takara BioView Interviews Yadira Soto-Feliciano

Takara BioView Blog

September 26, 2023

Yadira Soto-Feliciano talks to Takara BioView, which celebrated National Hispanic Heritage Month with interviews Hispanic scientists who have made significant contributions to our understanding of health and disease. Her advice to young scientists is to embrace their identity, because “it’s bringing something different to the table—particularly in science which has historically been very homogeneous. It’s really important to bring people with accents, people that look different, people with different experiences, because that's where innovation will happen.”

Implantable Insulin Factory

MIT News

September 18, 2023

An implantable device from the Anderson and Langer Labs carries cells that produce insulin, plus a tiny oxygen-producing factory that keeps the cells healthy. The device, described in PNAS, could help control diabetes without the need for injections.

Anthrax Delivers

MIT News

September 15, 2023

Combining inspiration from nature with state-of-the-art machine learning and automation, the Pentelute Lab is inventing new chemistry platforms and techniques to develop therapies for cancer and beyond. To help solve biotechnology’s longstanding problem of delivering large and unwieldy molecules into cells, the lab hijacked the anthrax virus’s highly effective delivery system to transport antibody and peptide variants into cells to treat cancer.

Predicting Immunotherapy Response

MIT News

September 14, 2023

A Nature Genetics study from the Jacks Lab could help identify cancer patients who would benefit the most from immunotherapies called checkpoint blockade inhibitors. The researchers found in mouse models that measuring the diversity of mutations within a tumor generated much more accurate predictions of whether the treatment would succeed than measuring the overall number of mutations. If validated in clinical trials, this information could help doctors to better determine which patients will benefit from checkpoint blockade inhibitors.

Congratulations to the 2023 Amon Award Winners 

MIT Koch Institute

September 12, 2023

The Koch Institute at MIT is pleased to announce the winners of the 2023 Angelika Amon Young Scientist Award, Johanna Gassler (Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Germany) and Ruxandra-Andreea Lambuta (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland). Gassler and Lambuta, selected for their commitment to discovery science, will present their research at the Koch Institute on Thursday, November 2. 

New Medium Mimics Metabolism

MIT Koch Institute

September 8, 2023

Scientists often use human cancer cells grown in the lab to test potential anticancer drugs. Yet, the culture medium used in the lab does not accurately represent the nutrients present in the body, leading to discrepancies in drug responses. In a study published in Cell Chemical Biology, the Vander Heiden Laboratory has developed a new culture medium that better mimics physiological nutrient levels, supports the proliferation of diverse cancer cell lines and is amenable to high-throughput screening. The group found that drugs targeting cancer cell metabolism showed the most significant differences in effectiveness between standard cell culture medium and theirs. These findings may help researchers understand why some drugs that worked well in the lab fail in real-life situations and provides a new tool for screening potential anticancer agents, especially those targeting cancer cell metabolism.

Better, Cheaper, Faster RNA Vaccine

MIT News

September 7, 2023

The Anderson Lab has engineered key vaccine components—both the nanoparticles that deliver the Covid-19 antigen, and the antigen itself—to boost immune response without a separate adjuvant. Such RNA vaccines could help reduce costs, reduce dosage needed, and potentially induce longer-lasting immunity. The vaccine may produce a strong enough response to be delivered intranasally.
 

KI Postdocs Named Banting Fellows

Government of Canada

September 5, 2023

Cheers to Erika Wang (Langer Lab and Jaklenec Group) and Binbin Ying (Langer and Traverso Labs) on being named Banting Postdoctoral Fellows by the Canadian government. The Banting Fellowship is a highly prestigious award that recognizes scholars who demonstrate outstanding potential to contribute positively to Canada's economic, social, and research-driven advancement. 

On the Shortlist for Cancer Grand Challenges Funding

Cancer Research UK

September 5, 2023

KI members Michael Birnbaum, Ömer Yilmaz, Brandon DeKosky and Regina Barzilay, as well as their MIT colleague Seychelle Vos, have been shortlisted by Cancer Research UK and the National Cancer Institute for the Cancer Grand Challenges as part of teams MATCHMAKERS, PROSPECT and KOODAC. If selected, these global, interdisciplinary teams will receive up to $25m to make radical progress against some of cancer’s toughest challenges.