Researchers from MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital have developed “Sybil,” an AI tool that can detect the risk of a patient developing lung cancer within six years, reports Mary Kekatos for ABC News. “Sybil was trained on low-dose chest computer tomography scans, which is recommended for those between ages 50 and 80 who either have a significant history of smoking or currently smoke,” explains Kekatos.
Janet Echelman, the 2022-2023 Mellon Distinguished Visiting Artist at CAST, speaks with The Conversation about her journey to becoming a sculptor, her creative process, and future projects. “It’s important to me that each person can create their own meaning from art,” says Echelman. “They are the expert in their own experience. If my work offers a moment of contemplation and allows you to feel a sense of calm and your own interconnection with the wind, sun, people and city, then that’s all I could hope for.”
In an article for The Boston Globe, Prof. Emeritus Ernest Moniz explores the risks associated with the cesium-137 devices used in hospitals. “Boston hospitals have an opportunity to receive tens of thousands of dollars of grants toward the purchase of new equipment that is just as effective for medical and research purposes as the radiological devices they have been using for decades,” writes Moniz, “while shedding the liabilities and security costs associated with cesium sources.”
Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, emphasizes the central role universities play in fostering innovation and the importance of ensuring universities have the computing resources necessary to help tackle major global challenges. Rus writes, “academia needs a large-scale research cloud that allows researchers to efficiently share resources” to address hot-button issues like generative AI. “It would provide an integrated platform for large-scale data management, encourage collaborative studies across research organizations, and offer access to cutting-edge technologies, while ensuring cost efficiency,” Rus explains.
Writing for Forbes, research affiliate John Werner spotlights Prof. Stefanie Mueller’s presentation at the CSAIL Imagination in Action event on her work developing a new type of paint that allows users to change the color and pattern of different objects. “The long-term vision here, really, is to give those physical objects the same capabilities as we have in digital,” said Mueller. “I hope in the future we will all get some free stuff, and we would just have an [app] where we can download different textures we can apply, and change our outfits.”
In this video for Wired, Prof. Anne White explains the nature of nuclear fusion in five levels of increasing difficulty to a child, a teen, a college student, a grad student, and an expert. “Fusion is so exciting because it is extraordinarily beautiful physics, which underpins some of the most basic processes in our universe," says White. “Nuclear processes have a tremendously valuable application for humankind, a virtually limitless, clean, safe, carbon-free form of energy.”
Michael Goldberg PhD '08 founded Surge Therapeutics, a company developing a hydrogel immunotherapy treatment aimed at reducing the risk of surgically-removed cancers returning, reports India Rice for Forbes. “Broadly speaking, immunotherapy is a range of cancer treatments that aim to strengthen the immune system’s ability to fight cancer,” explains Rice. “But what makes Surge’s solution different is that it’s applied during surgery as opposed to other immunotherapies that are delivered weeks before or weeks after surgery.”
Prof. Ev Fedorenko has been studying the differences in “the neural architecture of speakers who speak languages with different properties,” reports Sofia Quaglia for Wired. “Her studies suggest that the core features of language systems in the brain seem similar across the board,” explains Quaglia.
Researchers at MIT have developed a wearable patch that can allow drugs to pass through the skin using ultrasonic sound waves, reports Sandra Tsing for NPR. “The researchers say their lightweight design allows for reliable use on the go,” says Tsing. “This could treat skin conditions, both medical or cosmetic.”
During her talk at CSAIL’s Imagination in Action event, Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, explored the promise of using liquid neural networks “to solve some of AI’s notorious complexity problems,” writes research affiliate John Werner for Forbes. “Liquid networks are a new model for machine learning,” said Rus. “They're compact, interpretable and causal. And they have shown great promise in generalization under heavy distribution shifts.”
In an article for Forbes, research affiliate John Werner spotlights Prof. Dina Katabi and her work showcasing how AI can boost the capabilities of clinical data. “We are going to collect data, clinical data from patients continuously in their homes, track the symptoms, the evolution of those symptoms, and process this data with machine learning so that we can get insights before problems occur,” says Katabi.
Institute Prof. Bob Langer speaks with Curiosity podcast hosts Immad Akhynd and Raj Suri about his work in the field of biotechnology, delving into how he has co-founded 40 companies. “I wanted to get out and do some good in the world,” says Langer. “That's where patents come in and that's where companies come in. And I think the challenge of the company is very different because you have what I call a platform technology.”
GBH reporter Megan Smith spotlights Open Style Lab, a nonprofit founded at MIT that aims to make fashion more accessible. Yasmin Keats, executive director of Open Style Lab, notes that the organization was founded in 2014 at MIT’s International Design Center to “show what was possible in fashion. We also looked at the importance of design and style and how it can change not only the way that you see yourself — but also looked at how it can be a vehicle to change the way that the world views disability.”
A study by researchers from MIT and Stanford University explored how customer service agents use generative AI chatbots in their response to tech support questions, reports Meghan McCarty for Marketplace. “The most experienced workers see no to even small negative effects of the AI being turned on for them, while the less-experienced and least-productive workers see on average 30 to 35% improvements in productivity,” explains graduate student Lindsey Raymond.
Writing for The New York Times, MIT Prof. Amy Finkelstein and Stanford Prof. Liran Einav note that health insurance coverage for the Americans "who are fortunate enough to have insurance is deeply flawed.” Finkelstein and Einav make the case that the solution to health insurance reform is “universal coverage that is automatic, free and basic.”