KI Members Bob Weinberg and Eric Lander were both awarded the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences. They were among eleven scientists selected to receive the world’s newest (and most generous) academic prize for medicine and biology. The prize is awarded by a group of internet industry leaders for outstanding achievements in science. Former KI Scientific Advisory Board Member Titia de Lange (Rockefeller University) is also one of the recipients, as are two other KI friends, Hans Clevers (Hubrecht Institute) and Lewis Cantley (Weill Cornell Medical College), both collaborators on multi-institutional grants. Other recipients with ties to the KI are David Botstein (Princeton University), who was at MIT when he did his award winning work, and Cory Bargmann (Rockefeller University), who was a grad student in Bob Weinberg's lab, and a post doc with KI member Bob Horvitz. read more

The winners of the third annual Koch Institute Image Awards will be revealed during a special with/in/sight event on the evening of March 21st. Guests will be among the first to see the new images on display, and will hear the remarkable stories behind this year's selections during a special reception. Register to attend the event. register

BIND Biosciences has announced a global partnership with the world's biggest biotechnology company, Amgen, Inc.  BIND Biosciences is a nanomedicine technology company launched in 2007 from the laboratory of Koch Institute Professor Robert Langer with Harvard Medical School Associate Professor Omid Farokhzad, who was a research affiliate in the Langer lab at the time. The new partnership, worth at least $180.5 million, aims to apply BIND's tissue-targeting technology to Amgen's kinase inhibitor to develop a tumor-fighting nanomedicine with higher efficacy and lower toxicity. This deal represents the first major investment in nanoparticle-based drugs by a large pharma company and pharma's long-awaited official endorsement of nanomedicine. read more

Tyler Jacks, Robert Langer, and Phillip Sharp were among a diverse group of MIT researchers that presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting, where they highlighted the crucial role of multidisciplinary collaborations in biomedical innovation, including cancer research. The event's Family Science Days featured several MIT students and staff, including KI Public Outreach Coordinator Alex Fiorentino, who engaged hundred of families with hands-on demonstrations. Coinciding with this event, MIT hosted a day of on-campus activities for 232 American Junior Academy of Science delegates from across the nation, who stopped by the Biopolymer and Proteomics Core Facility in the KI's Swanson Biotechnology Center; KI member Richard Cook (pictured left) showed them around.
read more AAAS meeting
read more AJAS visit to MIT
 

KI researchers Darrel Irvine and Paula Hammond have created a polymer film that may eventually replace the vaccine injections of today. Their findings appeared in the January 27th edition of Nature Materials. Applied to the skin for a few minutes, the vaccine-delivering film promotes local release of vaccine components in the skin. Other alternative delivery methods have shown limited success, but this film holds promise for the development of effective DNA vaccines for diseases for which whole-organism vaccines are too risky. In addition to being safer, reproducible, and pain-free, the vaccine patch is also more stable at room temperature and is easily transported and stored. read more

The Winter 2013 issue of the HHMI Bulletin highlights the energy and excitement in the lab of Sangeeta Bhatia,  Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and member of the Koch Institute. read more

A group of MIT engineers including KI Member Robert Langer, David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT, found a new way to move materials through cell membranes by squeezing the cells through a narrow constriction that creates tiny temporary holes. This allows proteins, DNA, and nanoparticles to enter the cells, opening up (no pun intended) possibilities for many applications. The scientists see potential for improved imaging, reprogramming proteins, and generating pluripotent stem cells. read more