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a tumor imaged after treatment, stained pink for IL12 and yellow for alum

Alum for the Ride

MIT News

January 10, 2022

Irvine and Wittrup lab researchers have developed a technique to make cytokine therapy less toxic. These immunostimulatory molecules are quite potent and can have devastating side effects if administered systemically. In a preclinical study appearing in Nature Biomedical Engineering and supported in part by the Marble Center for Cancer Nanomedicine, the researchers anchored the cytokines to tumors with aluminum hydroxide, a compound that is often used to make vaccines more effective. They then administered immune checkpoint blockade therapy, observing that the tumors were eliminated in 50 to 90 percent of the mice across three cancer types. The technology has been licensed to a startup company that hopes to begin clinical trials by the end of the year.

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Showing 291–300 of 421 stories

Check It Out

PNAS

August 29, 2018

The Bhatia Lab is developing a library of activity-based nanosensors (ABNs) for proteases identified in prostate cancer. These injectible biosensors offer a new paradigm for diagnosis and classification of aggressive prostate cancer, through the production of prostate cancer biomarkers with a noninvasive readout. After screening human data for overexpression of proteases in prostate cancer samples vs normal adjacent tissue, the researchers modified a subset of the ABNs with tumor-penetrating peptides that target overexpressed integrins to increase their sensitivity. These modified sensors robustly classified mice bearing an aggressive prostate cancer xenograft compared to mice bearing a less-aggressive xenograft. Their results, published in PNAS, suggest a viable alternative to the current gold standard biomarker, known as PSA, which, in many cases, has poor predictive value and a relatively high propensity for false positives.

Culture Shock

MIT News

August 27, 2018

Let's dish about chromosomes, shall we? Researchers in the Amon Lab have uncovered evidence that cells dividing in culture or in the absence of tissue architecture have significantly higher levels of chromosome mis-segregation (a condition known as aneuploidy) than those that divide within their native environments. Their findings, published in Cell and profiled by HHMI, suggest that the hallmark aneuploidy found in more than 90% of solid human tumors may be influenced by disrupted tissue architecture, independent of gene expression and mutations, and has important implications for the widespread practice of studying cells in a dish. See this work in the KI Public Galleries.

Lead author and 2014 KI Images Award winner Kristin Knouse just won a 2018 NIH Director's Early Independence Award. Congratulations!

Set and Spike!

MIT News

August 10, 2018

A new two-step approach to treating gliomas could help clinicians set the ball by quickly identifying mutations, then drive it home by delivering mutation-targeted treatment, all during the course of tumor removal surgery. In a study published in PNAS, a team of researchers including KI research affiliate Giovanni Traverso and David H. Koch Institute Professor Robert Langer developed both a 30-minute test for IDH1/2 mutations, found in 20 to 25 percent of all gliomas, and microparticles that bypass the blood-brain barrier by implantation directly into the brain. The researchers are now developing tests for other common brain tumor mutations, and expect their approach to be applicable to tumors in other parts of the body. 

Are you "envoying" your summer, Dr. Langer?

MIT News

August 8, 2018

KI member Robert Langer, recently interviewed on the Partnering Insights blog and in Forbes, has been named one of five U.S. Science Envoys for 2018. As a Science Envoy for Innovation, Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor, will work at both the citizen and government levels to build international relationships and promote collaboration.

Eyes and Ears and Mouth And Nose...

MIT Spectrum

August 8, 2018

KI researchers have an impressive body of work when it comes to human health. MIT Spectrum's recent "head to toe" review of MIT's pioneering biomedical technologies and discoveries features innovative work by KI members Paula Hammond (eyes), Robert Langer (ears), Elazer Edelman (tissue), and Angelika Amon (cells).

Top Scholars

MIT Koch Institute

August 8, 2018

Congratulations to KI members Michael Birnbaum and Alex Shalek for being named to the 2018 cohort of Pew-Stewart Scholars! Birnbaum is working to develop new immunotherapies for hard-to-treat cancers, while Shalek is working to uncover unique markers for metastatic disease.

A Little "Light" Cancer Detection

Medium

August 8, 2018

She may not consider herself a "real biologist" but KI and Marble Center for Cancer Nanomedicine member Angela Belcher, recently nominated for XConomy's Innovation at the Intersection Award, is making real progress in the fight against ovarian cancer. NEO.LIFE explores how she is engineering viruses to bind to tumor cells and carbon nanotubes, with the goal of improving tumor-removal surgery cancer patient prognosis. 

In Xcellent Company

Xconomy

August 8, 2018

The Koch Institute congratulates the KI faculty members whose startup companies (and associated CEOs) are being celebrated by this year's Xconomy Award nominations. Each category honors a person, company, or organization within the Boston life sciences ecosystem, including:

Young Innovator: Former KI postdoc Carl Schoellhammer (CEO and co-founder, along with KI member Robert Langer, of Suono Bio)

Newcomer: Bill Haney (CEO and co-founder, along with KI director Tyler Jacks, of Dragonfly Therapeutics)

CEO: John Maraganore (CEO of Alnylam, co-founded by KI member Phil Sharp)

X of the Year: KI member and Senti Biosciences co-founder Timothy Lu (nominated as Scientific Founder of the Year)

Big Idea: Travera (co-founded by KI member Scott Manalis, and profiled here) and the Human Cell Atlas (co-led by KI member Aviv Regev and profiled here).

See all the nominations (including KI members Angela Belcher and Nancy Hopkins mentioned above!) here. 

Research for the Ages (Of Cells)

Genes and Development

July 26, 2018

Most cell types can only undergo a limited number of cell divisions, a process also referred to as cellular aging. What causes old cells to stop dividing has been unclear. In work published by Genes & Development, researchers in the Amon Laboratory identified aging factors that accumulate in old budding yeast mother cells and described how they interfere with cell division. Spontaneous transmission of these aging factors to daughter cells results in rejuvenation of the mother cell but causes death of their daughter. Because the cell division errors that occur in old yeast and human cells are remarkably similar, this research could help illuminate the molecular processes that cause aging of human cells.

Summer Backpacking with the Irvine Lab

MIT News

July 11, 2018

The Irvine Lab has summer backpacking down to a T (cell). New work, published in Nature Biotechnology, describes how this Marble Center for Cancer Nanomedicine team is using nanoparticle "backpacks" to improve efficacy and lower toxicity of adoptive T cell therapy against solid tumors. Their latest particles can carry 100-fold more drug than their predecessors and will release their cargo only when the immune cells carrying them reach the tumor and become activated. Senior author and principal investigator Darrell Irvine is a co-founder of startup company Torque, which is preparing to blaze a trail into the clinic later this year.