Writing for Nature, Marinko Sarunic and Cynthia Toth memorialize the life and work of Joseph A. Izatt PhD '91, who “had a special gift, and commitment, to reaching out and working with students and clinicians to create transformative technology." After undergraduate studies at MIT, Izatt focused on applied optics for his graduate work, with his mentors Prof. Michael Feld and Prof. James Fujimoto.
MIT engineers have developed a new adhesive, low-cost hydrogel that can stop fibrosis often experienced by people with pacemakers and other medical devices, reports for Maria Bolevich Interesting Engineering. “These findings may offer a promising strategy for long-term anti-fibrotic implant–tissue interfaces,” explains Prof. Xuanhe Zhao.
Ali Khademhosseini PhD ’05 founded Omeat, a cell-cultivated meat startup, which aims to provide sustainable meat without sacrificing an animal, reports Larissa Zimberoff for Fast Company. “Omeat takes cell biopsies from their cows and uses that to grow muscle cells in the lab, in steel-tank bioreactors that allow the cells to proliferate,” explains Zimberoff.
Researchers at MIT have developed a soft robot that can be controlled by a weak magnetic field and travel through tiny spaces within the human body, reports Andrew Paul for Popular Science. “Because of their soft materials and relatively simple manipulation, researchers believe such mechanisms could be used in biomedical situations, such as inching through human blood vessels to deliver a drug at a precise location,” explains Paul.
Ali Khademhosseini PhD ’05 founded Omeat, a cultivated meat startup that “enables the cultivation of any meat in a way that is orders-of-magnitude more sustainable and humane than the conventional approach,” reports Christine Hall for TechCrunch.
Alum Sophie Bai, founded B.A.I Biosciences and through her research has created Pavise, a skincare line focusing on sun care and aging, reports Celia Shatzman for Forbes. “I believe skincare starts with sun care, because 90% of skin problems are caused by UVA,” says Bai.
Popular Science spotlights a sampling of the winning pictures from this year’s MIT Koch Institute Image Awards, an annual competition showcasing some of the images produced as part of life science and biomedical research at MIT. “Today, high-magnification images can help design new medical tools, enrich our understanding of diseases, and explain how embryos develop. And, as shown by the 2023 winners from the MIT Koch Institute Image Awards, they can be works of art, too.”
David Moinina Sengeh MS ’12, PhD ’15 speaks with Ted Radio Hour host Manoush Zomorodi about his research in developing a more comfortable socket for prostheses. Sengeh “pioneered a new system for creating prosthetic sockets, which fit a prosthetic leg onto a patient's residual limb,” writes NPR.
Writing for Scientific American, Prof. Bob Langer examines how breakthroughs in biotechnology and materials science are enabling more personalized and effective treatments for patients. Langer highlights how by “engineering polymers that offer smart delivery systems, we can target specific parts of the body. This limits exposure and therefore adverse effects, offering more effective and precise treatment.”
Assistant Prof. Canan Dagdeviren speaks with Charles Q. Choi of The Atlantic about developing an implantable device that can produce electricity from internal movements of the muscles and organs. As the movements generate what is known as piezoelectricity, the implant can “run biomedical devices like cardiac pacemakers instead of changing them every six or seven years when their batteries are depleted,” Dagdeviren explains.
Christopher Gearon of U.S. News & World Report profiles freshman Emily Young. “An ACL injury led Emily Young to become ‘fascinated’ with biomedical engineering and biomechanics," writes Gearon.