Chemical Engineering

April 12 symposium: Take an immersive, intellectual journey across campus

Beyond 2016: MIT’s Frontiers of the Future event offers a playful introduction to research at MIT.

April 5, 2016

This device built by MIT researchers can be reconfigured to manufacture several different types of pharmaceuticals.

Pharmacy on demand

New, portable system can be configured to produce different drugs.

March 31, 2016

A scanning electron micrograph of a nanocrystal superlattice shows long-range ordering over large domains.

Nanocrystal self-assembly sheds its secrets

A new approach gives a real-time look at how the complex structures form.

March 21, 2016

In this time-lapse series of photos, progressing from top to bottom, a coating of sucrose (ordinary sugar) over a wire made of carbon nanotubes is lit at the left end, and burns from one end to the other. As it heats the wire, it drives a wave of electrons along with it, thus converting the heat into electricity.

MIT develops nontoxic way of generating portable power

Battery substitutes produce current by burning fuel-coated carbon nanotubes like a fuse.

March 14, 2016

Left: Lipid nanoparticles (carrying siRNA) are shown as they are transported inside cells using endocytic vesicles. Right: Gehrke's lab is developing a diagnostic for Dengue virus, a relative to Zika. The device shown, which tested for Ebola, has silver nanoparticles of different colors that indicate different diseases. On the left is the unused device, opened to reveal the contents inside. On the...

Confronting Zika

MIT's Institute of Medical Engineering and Science is on the front lines of efforts to diagnose and develop a vaccine against the emerging Zika virus.

February 23, 2016

MIT's Killian Court, with Great Dome in the background

Eleven MIT researchers win Sloan Research Fellowships

Faculty from eight MIT science and engineering departments among 126 selected from across the U.S. and Canada.

February 23, 2016

MIT faculty recipients of the 2016 Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers are: (clockwise from top left) Kay Tye, Cullen Buie, Tonio Buonassisi, and William Tisdale.

Four MIT faculty win Presidential Early Career Awards

Buie, Buonassisi, Tisdale, and Tye honored with the U.S. government's highest award for young scientists and engineers.

February 19, 2016

bioLogic Second Skin from the MIT Media Lab's Tangible Media Group

A living, breathing textile aims to enhance athletic performance

Researchers in the Media Lab's bioLogic group have created a new form of performance fabric that combines biomaterials research with textile design.

February 16, 2016

Using a new protein labeling technique based on squeezing cells, researchers labeled the nuclear envelope protein LaminA with green probes and histone 2B with magenta. Using traditional protein labeling, they also stained microtubules red and a lysosomal protein blue.

Cell squeezing enhances protein imaging

Compressing cells allows delivery of new fluorescent tags to track proteins in living cells.

February 1, 2016

“This finding really excites us because it makes us think that this is a gene repair system that could be used to treat a range of diseases — not just tyrosinemia but others as well,” Daniel Anderson says.

Curing disease by repairing faulty genes

New delivery method boosts efficiency of CRISPR genome-editing system.

February 1, 2016

A stealth material surface, shown here, has been engineered to provide an “invisibility cloak” against the body’s immune system cells. In this electron microscopy image, you can see the material's surface topography.

No more insulin injections?

Encapsulated pancreatic cells offer possible new diabetes treatment.

January 25, 2016

The atomic-force microscopy (AFM) image on the left demonstrates the physical binding between fibrinogen proteins and single walled carbon nanotubes. The right shows a trace of the AFM image with the fibrinogen in green and nanotubes in light blue.

Synthetic antibody detects proteins

New nanosensors recognize fibrinogen; may detect insulin, other biomarkers as well.

January 13, 2016

Left to right: Annabeth Gellman, Alexander Springer, and Kelsey Jamieson.

Three from MIT named inaugural Schwarzman Scholars

New award pays for one-year master's at Tsinghua University in China.

January 11, 2016

Angela Belcher (pictured), MIT professor of biological engineering and materials science and engineering; Paula Hammond, professor and head of the MIT Department of Chemical Engineering; Po-Yen Chen PhD ’15 (now at Brown University); and others have shown that a novel, high-efficiency, low-cost solar cell can be made using lead recovered from an abundant, old-technology source: lead-acid car bat...

Solar energy from discarded car batteries

An MIT development could benefit both the environment and human health.

December 22, 2015

Chemical engineering makers: (left to right) Chung-Yueh Lin, Bradley Olsen, and Paige Omura

Molecule makers

A new course in the Department of Chemical Engineering gives freshmen hands-on experience.