News

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.

Filter by

Filter by Title/Description

Filter by Topic

Filter by Year

Showing 561–570 of 595 stories

Diet and Cancer

MIT News

March 2, 2016

New research by KI members Omer Yilmaz and David Sabatini sheds light on how a high-fat diet can lead to an increased risk of colon cancer. The team, who published their results in Nature, found that mice fed a high-fat diet exhibit an increased proliferation of both intestinal stem cells and progenitor cells that acquire stemness, both of which increase the risk of tumor formation. If the results hold true for humans, they offer a clue to explain the mechanism by which a high-fat diet contributes to cancer risk. This work was supported in part by the Koch Institute Frontier Research Program through the Kathy and Curt Marble Cancer Research Fund, and by the V Foundation.

Immaculate Suppression

Genes and Development

December 17, 2015

The epigenetic regulator Bmi1 is known to promote cellular proliferation through its control of cell cycle genes. However, researchers in the laboratory of KI faculty member Jacqueline Lees have found an unexpected role for Bmi1 in melanoma, where it does not drive proliferation. Instead, the authors of a recent study published in Genes & Development find that Bmi1 supports melanoma metastasis by turning on genes that help melanoma cells invade tissues and survive new environments. Moreover, they find that melanomas with high Bmi1 levels are resistant to BRAF inhibitors--drugs commonly administered as the BRAF gene is activated in 50% of early-stage melanomas.

SQZ Named Roche's New Squeeze

GEN News

December 7, 2015

SQZ Biotech recently announced a cancer-fighting partnership with pharmaceutical firm Roche. Headed by Koch Institute visiting scientist and former postdoc Armon Sharei, SQZ also counts several Koch Institute members among its Boards of Directors (Robert Langer) and Scientific Advisors (Tyler Jacks, Darrell Irvine, and Christopher Love). SQZ uses a device invented by Sharei, called CellSqueeze, to engineer cell-based therapies for disease, most notably B cell-driven immunotherapies for a broad range of cancers. Earlier this year, SQZ was named one of FierceBiotech's 2015 Fierce 15, and the CellSqueeze device was named one of Scientific American's top ten world-changing ideas of 2014. Development of SQZ's B cells was initially supported by the Koch Institute Frontier Research Program through the Kathy and Curt Marble Cancer Research Fund.

$20 Million Commonwealth Foundation for Cancer Research Challenge Gift to Expand Collaborative Cancer Research

MIT News

October 28, 2015

The Commonwealth Foundation for Cancer Research has pledged $20 million to the Bridge Project, a collaborative research program of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT and the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, to accelerate the translation of interdisciplinary cancer solutions toward the clinic. The Commonwealth Foundation gift, which will be made over the next five years, will double the number of grants available to fund these multi-investigator teams each year. It also will create two new funding mechanisms that will extend the pipeline of collaboration and catalyze the translation of basic research toward clinical trials. “Footbridge Grants” will enable new teams to form and establish proof of concept. “Expansion Grants” will provide follow-on funding to existing teams that are on the cusp of making significant advances toward clinical implementation.

Yaffe Lab Backs Cancer into a Corner

MIT News

October 22, 2015

Researchers in the laboratory of KI faculty member Michael Yaffe have discovered a drug-resistance mechanism in tumor cells: a backup system that takes over when p53 is disabled. By targeting this backup system, these tumors could be made much more susceptible to chemotherapy.

Bugging Cancer

MIT News

August 4, 2015

While biopsies of cancerous tissue can provide insight into an appropriate course of treatment, cancer can evolve, develop resistance to therapies, and find new pathways for growth. Now, researchers in the laboratory of KI faculty member and David H. Koch Professor of Engineering Michael Cima have developed an implantable device, small enough to fit inside a biopsy needle, allowing doctors to monitor cancer in real time. The device wirelessly transmits biomarker data, allowing clinicians to easily and inexpensively receive critical feedback on whether a treatment is working or needs adjusting. Cima’s device was covered extensively in the press, including in Boston Magazine and on Boston.com.

Freshly Squeezed Vaccines

MIT News

May 22, 2015

KI researchers have shown that they can use a microfluidic cell-squeezing device to introduce specific antigens inside the immune system’s B cells, providing a new approach to developing and implementing antigen-presenting cell vaccines. Through CellSqueeze, the device platform originally developed at MIT, the researchers pass a suspension of B cells and target antigen through tiny, parallel channels etched on a chip. A positive-pressure system moves the suspension through these channels, which gradually narrow, applying a gentle pressure to the B cells. This “squeeze” opens small, temporary holes in their membranes, allowing the target antigen to enter by diffusion.

From Body to Bedside

MIT News

April 22, 2015

KI researchers in the laboratories of David H. Koch Institute Professor Robert Langer and David H. Koch Professor of Engineering Michael Cima have developed an implantable device that could allow doctors to test drugs in patients before prescribing chemotherapy. When implanted in a tumor, this tiny device diffuses small doses of up to 30 different drugs — or combinations thereof — in surrounding tumor cells. After one day, the implant and a small biopsy of surrounding tissue are removed, allowing researchers to study and rank the efficacy of drugs. This research was featured extensively in the news, including in New Scientist, The Scientist, and The Boston Herald. This device is now an integral part of multiple translational projects, including a Bridge Project collaboration between David H. Koch Professor of Biology Michael Yaffe and colleagues at Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center to test combination drug therapies for advanced prostate cancer.

Open Data Opens Minds

MIT News

April 15, 2015

As access to data about his brain ultimately led to the detection and removal of a baseball-sized tumor last August, Steven Keating knows firsthand how powerful health data can be. Keating, an MIT graduate student, has open sourced much of his own health data on his personal website with the hope that it may help researchers and patients better understand cancer. His inspiring story, which blends equal parts curiosity and positivity, has been shared in MIT News, The New York Times, and BetaBoston, and he has given several talks on campus, including two at the KI.

Robert Langer wins the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering

MIT News

February 3, 2015

KI faculty member Robert Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor, has been named the winner of the 2015 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering (QEPrize). As there is no Nobel Prize for engineering, the QEPrize was launched in 2011 to fill this void while raising the public profile of engineering and inspiring young people to become engineers. Langer is receiving the prize for his revolutionary advances and leadership in engineering at the interface with chemistry and medicine. In particular, this recognition comes for being the first person to engineer polymers to enable the controlled release of large molecular weight drugs in the treatment of cancer and other diseases.  He will receive the prize from Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace later this year.