Cancer

MIT researchers have developed a way to measure white blood cell levels by imaging the cells as they flow through capillaries at the base of the fingernail. In these images, the white blood cells are marked by crosses.

Monitor detects dangerously low white blood cell levels

Technology could help prevent life-threatening infections in patients receiving chemotherapy.

April 2, 2018

Timothy Lu's early interest in computer programming was inspired by his father, who worked as an electrical engineer at IBM.

Timothy Lu seeks to combat disease by reprogramming biological systems

Synthetic biologist hopes to develop treatments for cancer and other diseases.

March 4, 2018

A collection of SHERLOCK paper test strips. (Left) Unused paper strips, (middle) paper tests displaying a negative SHERLOCK readout, and (right) paper tests displaying a positive SHERLOCK readout.

Researchers advance CRISPR-based tool for diagnosing disease

With SHERLOCK, a strip of paper can now indicate presence of pathogens, tumor DNA, or any genetic signature of interest.

February 15, 2018

Graduate student James Hermus demonstrates a production robot based on the original MIT-MANUS design in the Eric P. and Evelyn E. Newman Laboratory for Biomechanics and Human Rehabilitation. The robot, which helps stroke victims recover and regain mobility, represents one of the many ways MIT's mechanical engineering researchers are working to improve health care.

Understanding and treating disease

Mechanical engineering researchers are developing new and innovative ways to improve health care.

February 2, 2018

Five cancer researchers make up the MIT Center for Precision Cancer Medicine’s founding faculty. Left to right: Angela Koehler, Michael Hemann, Michael Yaffe (director), Forest White, and Matthew Vander Heiden.

Fine-tuning cancer medicine

New cancer research initiative eyes individualized treatment for patients.

February 1, 2018

MIT biologists have designed a new peptide that can disrupt a key protein that many types of cancers, including some forms of lymphoma, leukemia, and breast cancer, need to survive.

Biologists’ new peptide could fight many cancers

Drug that targets a key cancer protein could combat leukemia and other types of cancer.

January 15, 2018

Ryan Kohn, a PhD candidate in the MIT Biology Department’s Jacks Lab, holds a photo of his son, Jayden.

The need to know

Driven by curiosity, former auto mechanic Ryan Kohn now pursues a PhD in biology.

December 18, 2017

Through a Bridge Project collaboration with David Weinstock (left) of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI), and MIT Professor Scott Manalis (center), cell-weighing technology is being evaluated in a clinical laboratory at DFCI. MIT visiting scientist Mark Stevens is pictured at right.

Over the river and do some good

The Bridge Project collaboration accelerates new, highly original, and powerful approaches to defeating cancer.

November 22, 2017

Cells pass through an sSMR device, which consists of multiple sensors that are fluidically connected in series and separated by delay channels (not all is shown). This design enables a stream of cells to flow through the device such that different sensors can concurrently weigh flowing cells in the stream.

Cell-weighing method could help doctors choose cancer drugs

Technique may predict which therapies a patient is most sensitive or resistant to.

November 20, 2017

MIT senior Mary Clare Beytagh hopes to become a science writer as well as a physician-scientist, telling stories that humanize patients and focus on the social and economic determinants of health.

Mary Clare Beytagh: Finding poetry in medicine

MIT senior and aspiring physician aims to tell stories that humanize the patients behind medical statistics.

November 12, 2017

Fighting a giant foe at a tiny scale

Professor Paula Hammond uses nanoscale biomaterials to craft anti-cancer treatments tiny enough to get through the bloodstream and enter tumors.

November 7, 2017

Researchers have developed a new method for making “blood biopsies” for cancer more effective by using whole exome sequencing to monitor tumor DNA from blood samples.

New techniques give blood biopsies greater promise

Improved methods validate the use of blood samples for studying patients’ cancer genomes.

November 6, 2017

A scanning electron micrograph of a human T lymphocyte (also called a T-cell) from the immune system of a healthy donor. Researchers have designed a synthetic gene circuit that triggers the immune system to attack cancers when it detects signs of the disease.

Gene circuit switches on inside cancer cells, triggers immune attack

Advance may open new pathways for cancer immunotherapy.

October 19, 2017

Pictured, left to right, are: Manisha Bahl, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Breast Imaging Fellowship Program; MIT Professor Regina Barzilay (center); and Constance Lehman, professor at Harvard Medical School and chief of the Breast Imaging Division at MGH’s Department of Radiology.

Using artificial intelligence to improve early breast cancer detection

Model developed at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory could reduce false positives and unnecessary surgeries.

October 16, 2017

In this image, lung cancer driven by the KRAS oncogene shows up in purple. MIT biologists have found a potential new way to treat this type of lung tumor, long thought to be “undruggable."

New target for treating “undruggable” lung cancer

Drug already in clinical trials may be effective on some aggressive adenocarcinomas.

October 2, 2017

MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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