Spotlight
Surprising result suggests that enhancing these mutations’ impact could offer a new way to treat cancer.
A typical cancer cell has thousands of mutations scattered throughout its genome and hundreds of mutated genes. However, only a handful of those genes, known as drivers, are responsible for cancerous traits such as uncontrolled growth.
Cancer biologists have largely ignored the other mutations, believing they had little or no impact on cancer progression.
A scanning electron micrograph of a squamous cell carcinoma, a type of skin cancer. The cell has been frozen and split open to reveal its nucleus.
Image: Anne Weston, LRI,CRUK.Wellcome Images
Professor J.J. Collins
Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Dept. of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University; Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Building E25 Room 111
Pre-lecture reception: 5-5:30pm
Lecture: 5:30-6:30
Title: "Network Biology Approaches to Microbial Threats"
NSBRI's Graduate Education Program in Space Life Sciences is conducted jointly at Texas A&M University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) through the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. Students in these programs work toward a Ph.D. that focuses on space life sciences.
The program is developing modules to strengthen current graduate curricula at these two institutions enabling students to experience advanced courses in biomedical science and engineering, specifically as these fields relate to the space program. Once fully developed, it is anticipated that the educational modules will be applicable to accredited doctoral programs across the nation.
Researchers have developed a novel device that may one day have broad therapeutic and diagnostic uses in the detection and capture of rare cell types, such as cancer cells, fetal cells, viruses and bacteria. The device is inspired by the long, elegant appendages of sea creatures, such as jellyfish and sea cucumbers.
The study was published November 12, 2012 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Inspired by jellyfish tentacles, researchers develop a method for capturing rare cancer cells in the blood. Image by Dan90266 under Creative Commons license
New adhesive comes off quickly, sparing infants’ delicate skin from damage.
“This is just a huge unmet need,” says Jeffrey Karp, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-director of the Center for Regenerative Therapeutics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Image: Bryan Laulicht
The backing of the newly developed medical tape easily peels off, leaving the adhesive behind.
New MIT study identifies adhesion molecules key to cancer’s spread through the body.
Although tumor metastasis causes about 90 percent of cancer deaths, the exact mechanism that allows cancer cells to spread from one part of the body to another is not well understood. One key question is how tumor cells detach from the structural elements that normally hold tissues in place, then reattach themselves in a new site.
A new study from MIT cancer researchers reveals some of the cellular adhesion molecules that are critical to this process. The findings, published Oct. 9 in Nature Communications, offer potential new cancer drug targets, says Sangeeta Bhatia, the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and leader of the research team.
A microscopic image of cancer cells adhering to a spot coated with molecules found in the extracellular matrix.
Image: Nathan Reticker-Flynn
Four MIT faculty members have been awarded National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants designed to promote innovative biomedical research.
The Institute’s recipients of these new NIH grants are Hidde Ploegh, professor of biology and member of the Whitehead Institute; Feng Zhang, assistant professor of brain and cognitive sciences and member of the McGovern Institute; Jeff Gore, assistant professor of physics; and Emery Brown, professor of brain and cognitive sciences.
Emery N. Brown, professor of health sciences and technology and computational neuroscience at MIT.
Photo: Patrick Gillooly
Congratulations to Bryan Laulicht from the Karp and Langer Laboratories and Weian Zhao from the Karp Laboratory, recipients of this year's TR35 Award.
Since 1999, Technology Review has selected 35 exceptionally talented young innovators whose work we, their peers, and a distinguished panel of judges have agreed has the greatest potential to transform the world.
Members of the Sana AudioPulse team after winning the Mobile Health Challenge.From left to right: Lauren Scanlon (NEU/MIT),Anna Giselle Ribeiro (UFRN), Ana Maria Guerreiro (UFRN), Marzyeh Ghassemi (MIT/CSAIL), GSMA organizer, Kenneth Paik (Harvard/MIT).
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends screening all infants for hearing loss before six months of age to prevent permanent damage such as speech and language impairment, learning disabilities and much more. In Brazil, the government has gone so far as to mandate screenings for all infants, but despite these efforts many infants go without testing due to limited medical resources.
Congratulations to HST MEMP students Justin Lee, Adam Pan, Vyas Ramanan, Nikhil Vadhavkar, and Andrew Warren, working under Prof. George Barbastathis, have received a Round 8 Global Challenges Exploration Grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The team will be using this $100,000 grant to develop unmanned aerial vehicles for developing world countries that can be deployed by health care workers via cell phones to swiftly deliver vaccines to hard-to-reach locations."