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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 421–430 of 595 stories

“I wish I was chilling.”

Boston Globe

May 12, 2020

The Boston Globe reports that physical isolation is no match for Bob Langer. From vaccine development to viral blood-brain barrier studies, the ever-prolific engineer is doing his part for coronavirus response efforts. Catch up with him (if you can) via recorded web chat or help your student at home channel their inner-Langer with some STEM inspiration.

High-Capacity Viral Diagnostics

MIT News

April 29, 2020

A new CRISPR-based diagnostic platform simultaneously performs thousands of tests to detect viruses, including SARS-CoV-2. In a study published in Nature, researchers adapted microfluidic technology developed in the Blainey Lab and supported in part by the Bridge Project to create chips that can run thousands of tests flexibly configured across different numbers of samples and viruses.

Nothing to Sneeze At

Whitehead Institute

April 22, 2020

Sabatini Lab postdoc and pulmonologist Raghu Chivukula used cell culture and electron microscopy to unravel the mystery of a rare genetic mutation behind an unknown lung disease. His 2019 Image Awards winning image shows the “airway in a dish” that proved the foundational model for the eventual diagnosis.

Sussing Out Susceptibility

MIT News

April 22, 2020

A team including Alex Shalek, KI member and recently named Harold E. Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award recipient, is using gene expression data to identify specific types of cells targeted by the coronavirus behind the COVID-19 pandemic. Their study’s results, published in Cell and reported on in The Boston Globe and the NIH Director’s Blog, could be used to guide future treatment of the disease.

This work was supported in part by the MIT Stem Cell Initiative. The team recently received an award from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to study how cells in the airways of pediatric patients respond to SARS-CoV-2 and common respiratory viruses.

Faster, Cheaper, Scalable

MIT News

April 22, 2020

A small team of graduate researchers has returned to the Love Lab with a mission: generate and test preclinical materials to help develop an affordable, accessible COVID-19 vaccine for large-scale production on a lightning-speed timeline. Although there are efforts underway across the globe to manufacture vaccines in the hundreds of millions, billions of doses may be necessary. To address this gap, the researchers are deploying a strategy developed under a Grand Challenge for ultra-low cost vaccines and are now simultaneously testing their first candidate component for a vaccine and optimizing the manufacturing process. The concurrent approach allows the team to develop vaccine components with manufacturability in mind from the start and potentially compresses the timeline from benchtop to full-scale production.

Balancing Act

MIT News

April 21, 2020

MIT senior and former Anderson/Langer Lab researcher Steven Truong brings his experience as a biological engineering student home in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the resident biomedical expert in his immigrant family, Truong balances schoolwork with medical challenges, language barriers, and a pressing need to combat misinformation.

Turning the Peptide on Lung Cancer Detection

MIT News

April 17, 2020

The Bhatia Lab’s peptide-based nanosensors offer a non-invasive strategy for early cancer detection. In a study published in Science Translational Medicine, researchers used intratracheally administered particles in combination with machine learning algorithms to accurately detect lung tumors as small as 2.8 cubic millimeters. Working with Jacks Lab collaborators, they showed in genetically engineered mouse models that their urine-based diagnostic could also distinguish between early-stage cancer and noncancerous inflammation of the lungs, which could greatly reduce the number of false positives in a clinical setting. Watch video.

The research was supported in part by the Marble Center for Cancer Nanomedicine, the Koch Institute Frontier Research Program through a gift from Upstage Lung Cancer, and the Johnson & Johnson Lung Cancer Initiative.

Weight Loss and Pancreatic Cancer

Yale Cancer Center

April 17, 2020

Along with his former KI mentor, Jacks Lab alum and collaborator Mandar Muzumdar is a senior author on a study investigating obesity’s role in pancreatic cancer progression. The work, partly supported by the Lustgarten Foundation, appears in Cell and examines the effects of genetically-engineered and dietary induction of weight loss on tumorigenesis.

Improving Treatment for Liver Cancer

Medical Xpress

April 17, 2020

Anderson Lab technology plays a crucial role in the development of a new combinatorial therapy for liver cancer. In a study published in Molecular Therapy, the group’s lipid nanoparticles were used in conjunction with siRNA and chemotherapy to target key proteins involved in cell death, selectively killing cancer cells in animal models.

Community in Silico

Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Institute

April 14, 2020

Searching for ways to stay connected to the cancer research community while safely socially isolating? The Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center’s seminar series “Science:Connect” features leaders in cancer biology, immune oncology, and more four days a week at 12:00 pm EST. You can join live or watch past talks; look for KI faculty members Tyler Jacks on April 14 and Angelika Amon on April 16.