Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES)

WCVB reports that researchers from MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital have developed a pill coated with tiny needles that can deliver drugs directly into the digestive tract. The pill was found to deliver insulin more efficiently than current methods, WCVB reports.  

“Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a pill-like capsule that injects medication into the stomach lining after being swallowed,” reports Sky News. The new capsule could allow for oral delivery of drugs that currently must be injected.

MIT scientists have developed a pill coated in tiny needles that allows medicine to be absorbed through the lining of the stomach, writes Brooks Hays of UPI. Initial trials showed that the pill delivered insulin more efficiently than an injection. 

Thomas Burton of The Wall Street Journal writes that MIT researchers were among those awarded the first research grants under President Obama’s new BRAIN Initiative. Burton writes that one of the MIT grants will go toward “determining which exact brain circuits are involved in generating short-term memories that influence decisions.”

Boston Globe reporter Deborah Kotz writes that MIT researchers have been awarded new grants from the National Institutes of Health to further brain research. “Biophysicist Alan Jasanoff received a grant to develop imaging agents for functional MRI imaging that would target the flow of calcium into and out of brain cells,” writes Kotz of one of the MIT grants. 

MIT neuroscientists were among the recipients of new grants for brain research from the National Institutes of Health, reports Jon Hamilton for NPR. Hamilton explains that as part of one grant, “Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will try to adapt functional MRI so that it can show the activity of individual brain cells.”

The Boston Globe writes about Professor Sangeeta Bhatia's commitment to mentoring her students. “It's heartening to know that, tucked away in labs all over our region, solution-driven scientists like Sangeeta Bhatia are tinkering and building — and encouraging others to do the same.”

Boston Globe reporter Chris Reify writes that Professor Sangeeta Bhatia has been awarded the 2014 $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize. “Dr. Bhatia is a wonderful example of a woman who has used her brilliance, skill and creativity to radically improve the detection and treatment of serious global health issues,” says Dorothy Lemelson, Lemelson Foundation chair. 

NBC News reports that MIT Prof. Sangeeta Bhatia has been awarded the Lemelson-MIT prize for her work designing miniaturized biomedical tools. "As innovations emerge, we're constantly asking whether they can be repurposed for one of the two diseases we concentrate on: liver disease and cancer,” says Bhatia. 

Jeremy Hobson interviews Prof. Sangeeta Bhatia about her work 3-D printing tiny human livers on NPR’s Here and Now. The livers are, “about the size of the pin of a needle, and they allow us to do drug testing to test if drugs would be safe when they got into humans,” Bhatia explains.