This video produced by The Wall Street Journal examines new research by MIT scientists showing how the soft palate plays a key role in the transmission of the flu. “The discovery should help scientists better understand the characteristics of flu viruses that have the ability to travel through the air.”
In this video, PBS explores a new technique MIT researchers developed to enlarge brain samples, making them easier to image at high resolutions. Prof. Ed Boyden explains that he hopes the technique could be used to “hunt down very rare things in a tissue.”
In a Boston Globe article about the high level of patent activity in Massachusetts, Emeralde Jensen-Roberts highlights MIT postdoctoral fellow Keith Hearon’s work developing a new type of biodegradable styrofoam, which he is patenting. “Now in the development phase, Hearon believes the citrus plastic with styrofoam has vast potential for larger-scale applications, thanks to its strength.”
MIT biologists have developed a genetically modified version of a common gut bacteria that could be used to treat disease, reports Catherine Woods for the PBS NewsHour. “You could engineer a Bacteroides to live in the gut and detect when inflammation is just starting…so that you can seek treatment right away,” explains Prof. Timothy Lu.
Researchers at MIT have developed tools that could one day allow intestinal bacteria to monitor, diagnose and treat diseases, writes Eryn Brown for The Los Angeles Times. "Just as you'd program computers, we're starting to learn how to program cells by modifying their DNA," says Prof. Timothy Lu.
Wired reporter Liat Clark writes that researchers at the MIT Media Lab have developed a 3-D printed biological wearable that “could theoretically generate drugs, fuel and food when exposed to sunlight.”
Prof. Robert Langer, winner of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, speaks with Joel Brown of The Boston Globe about his current research and the need for government support for basic research. “So much good stuff has come out of basic research, research that you don’t really know where it’s going to go. So you want people to be able to get grants to do that,” explains Langer.
Washington Post reporter Annie Gowen writes about how MIT researchers have found that India’s latest swine flu outbreak may have mutated into a more dangerous strain. The researchers found “new mutations in the protein known to make the virus more virulent.”
Professor Ram Sasisekharan and research scientist Kannan Tharakaraman have found that a strain of H1N1 influenza in India is more virulent than health authorities have indicated, writes Rishi Lyengar of Time. “They found mutations in the Indian strains in a protein called hemagglutinin, which binds with receptors on the human body’s respiratory cells,” Lyengar writes.
Laura Santhanam writes for the PBS NewsHour that MIT researchers have found that a strain of swine flu in India is more dangerous than originally thought. The researchers found that “a mutation in the new H1N1 strain allows this form of swine flu to attack an infected person’s respiratory cells more virulently.”
Prof. Robert Langer speaks with Chris Baraniuk of New Scientist about winning the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering and his career in biotechnology. “It’s going to be the entrepreneurs, the new professors, the young people who are willing to think outside the box and not necessarily go down a conventional path,” says Langer of the future of medicine.
Professor Robert Langer has won the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering for his pioneering work with medical technologies, reports David Shukman for BBC News. Shukman notes that “as many as two billion people have in some way been touched by technologies devised and developed by him and his teams.”
Prof. Robert Langer has been awarded the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, writes Financial Times reporter Clive Cookson. Lord Broers, chair of the QE Prize judges, explains that Langer was honored for his “immense contribution to healthcare and to numerous other fields.”
Karen Hopkin of Scientific American writes about a new method developed by MIT researchers for increasing the size of tissue samples to allow for better observation. Thus far, the researchers have used the new technique to “peer into the brains of mice, fruit flies and zebrafish,” Hopkin explains.
Using a polymer found in diapers that swells on contact with water, Prof. Ed Boyden and his colleagues have developed a method for enlarging tissue samples to allow for better 3-D imaging, writes Jessica Hamzelou for New Scientist. The team can enlarge samples to more than four times their original size, Hamzelou reports.