News & Events

MIT researchers have always been drawn to urgent, life-or-death problems. The pandemic is keeping them busy, including two affiliated with IMES. This story was originally published in MIT Technology Review: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/08/18/1006213/tackling-covid/ As covid-19 spread across the globe, killing hundreds of thousands and wreaking economic havoc, the MIT community took on…

New book for the general public by the founding director of IMES explains how novel viruses such as SARS-Cov-2 emerge and how we can fight them. Since the novel coronavirus SARS-Cov-2 emerged late last year, it has been virtually impossible to consume any news without encountering stories about the virus…

The company Health at Scale, co-founded by two HST alumni and an MIT professor, uses machine learning to improve outcomes for individual patients. The health care system today largely focuses on helping people after they have problems. When they do receive treatment, it’s based on what has worked best on…

Transitioning to graduate or medical school is a challenge ­– doing so during a pandemic, even more so. This year’s incoming Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology (HST) class will be facing that challenge, as many will be among the Harvard and MIT students taking classes remotely to begin…

Faculty members, including at IMES, recognized for excellence via a diverse array of honors, grants, and prizes over the past two quarters. Members of the MIT engineering faculty receive many awards in recognition of their scholarship, service, and overall excellence. The School of Engineering periodically recognizes their achievements by highlighting…

Machine learning system from researchers at MIT CSAIL and IMES can look at chest X-rays to diagnose pneumonia — and also knows when to defer to a radiologist. In recent years, entire industries have popped up that rely on the delicate interplay between human workers and automated software. Companies like…

MIT researchers, including IMES faculty members, propose a design aimed at overcoming a major challenge in hydrocephalus catheters — clogging — by leveraging catheter geometry. For medical professionals treating hydrocephalus — a chronic neurological condition caused by an abnormal accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), resulting in pressure on the brain…

The startup Kinsa, founded by an HST graduate, uses its smart thermometers to detect and track the spread of contagious illness before patients go to the hospital. Kinsa was founded by MIT alumnus Inder Singh MBA ’06, Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology (HST) SM ’07, in 2012, with…

Specialized nanoparticles create a “breath signal” that could be used to diagnose pneumonia and other infectious or genetic diseases. Using specialized nanoparticles, MIT engineers have developed a way to monitor pneumonia or other lung diseases by analyzing the breath exhaled by the patient. In a study of mice, the researchers…

A six-week donation drive yields 15,000 N95 respirator masks and 1,000 medical gowns for use in Massachusetts hospitals. When coronavirus cases in Massachusetts began to increase in early March, the MIT community sprang into action. By late March, more than 50 MIT departments, labs, and centers had donated extra, unopened personal…