News & Events

Invertons — bits of regulatory DNA that can flip between “on” and “off” positions — let bacteria adapt to their surroundings and are widespread. Bacteria have a number of well-known tricks available to them to adapt to changing environments, such as mutation and sharing snippets of DNA with each other….

Patients with lung disease could find relief by breathing in messenger RNA molecules. Messenger RNA, which can induce cells to produce therapeutic proteins, holds great promise for treating a variety of diseases. The biggest obstacle to this approach so far has been finding safe and efficient ways to deliver mRNA…

New optogenetic technique could help restore limb movement, treat muscle tremor. For the first time, MIT researchers have shown that nerves made to express proteins that can be activated by light can produce limb movements that can be adjusted in real-time, using cues generated by the motion of the limb…

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has named IMES core faculty member and W.M. Keck Career Development Professor in Biomedical Engineering, Thomas Heldt, an Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) Distinguished Lecturer for 2019. Lecturers serve one-year terms and are selected from around the world to speak…

Technique for preserving tissue allows researchers to create maps of neural circuits with single-cell resolution. MIT chemical engineers and neuroscientists have devised a new way to preserve biological tissue, allowing them to visualize proteins, DNA, and other molecules within cells, and to map the connections between neurons. The researchers showed…

Four seniors in the Principles and Practices of Assistive Technology (PPAT) program, led by IMES Senior Lecturer Julie Greenberg, designed an audible device to help an MIT employee navigate on the water.

Carnegie Mellon University announced Dec. 5 that Emery N. Brown, the Associate Director of the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, the Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical Engineering and Computational Neuroscience at MIT, the Warren M. Zapol Professor of Anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School, and anesthesiologist at Massachusetts General…

Eric Alm is a professor of civil and environmental engineering and biological engineering at MIT and co-director of the Center for Microbiome Informatics and Therapeutics. He also serves on the board of directors for the non-profit stool bank, OpenBiome, and clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company Finch Therapeutics. His work focuses on understanding and engineering the…

Ellen Roche is used to bridging two worlds. Originally from Galway, she has spent the past 14 years moving back and forth between the United States and her native Ireland. She has also spent time in both industry and academia. As an assistant professor at MIT, she holds a joint…

By studying both the physical and genomic features of cancer cells, MIT researchers have come up with a new way to investigate why some cancer cells survive drug treatment while others succumb. Their new approach, which combines measurements of cell mass and growth rate with analysis of a cell’s gene…