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.”
President Emerita Susan Hockfield discusses her new book, “The Age of Living Machines,” her work as a neuroscientist, and the future of science and technology during a curated lunch conversation with HUBweek and Boston.com. Hockfield explains that a revolution spurred by the convergence of biology with engineering will lead to new technologies built by biology.
In an excerpt from her new book published in The Wall Street Journal, President Emerita Susan Hockfield explores how the convergence between biology and engineering is driving the development of new tools to tackle pressing human problems. Hockfield writes that for these world-changing technologies to be realized requires “not only funding and institutional support but, more fundamentally, a commitment to collaboration among unlikely partners.”
President Emerita Susan Hockfield speaks with Jim Braude of WGBH’s Greater Boston about her book, “The Age of Living Machines.” “We are looking at a population of over 9.7 billion by 2050,” explains Hockfield. “We are not going to get there without war or epidemics or starvation if we don’t develop technologies that will allow us to provide energy, food, water, health and health care sustainably.”
Verge reporter Angela Chen spotlights Prof. Michael Strano’s work using nanobionics to engineer plants. “It’s long overdue that we start to look at plants as the starting point of technology,” explains Strano. “As an engineering platform, they have a number of untapped advantages.”
MIT researchers have developed a new drug-releasing coil that could be used to help treat tuberculosis, reports Ruby Prosser Scully for New Scientist. Scully explains that the coil is “too large to leave the stomach, so it stays there, and the medicines threaded onto it leach out at a rate depending on the type of drug and the polymer the developers use to make the pills.”
NIH Director Francis Collins highlights how MIT researchers have developed a new ingestible device, shaped like the shell of an African leopard tortoise, that can inject insulin directly into the stomach wall. Collins writes that, “this fascinating work serves as a reminder that when it comes to biomedical science, inspiration sometimes can come from the most unexpected places.”
MIT researchers have developed a new ingestible capsule that in the future could be used to deliver medication to diabetes patients, reports Dr. Erica Orsini for ABC News. “The oral route is preferred by both patients and health care providers,” explains visiting scientist Giovanni Traverso.
A new ingestible pill developed by MIT researchers positions itself against the walls of the stomach and can deliver insulin directly to the bloodstream, reports Gina Kolata for The New York Times. “It’s a very new concept and a really cool idea,” says Edith Mathiowitz, a professor of medical science and engineering at Brown University.
Financial Times reporter Clive Cookson writes that MIT researchers have developed an ingestible pill that can deliver insulin directly to a patient’s stomach. “This discovery has the potential to transform not only drug delivery but drug discovery as well,” explains Prof. Robert Langer, “since most current drug discovery efforts are aimed at creating small molecule drugs that patients can take orally.”
MIT researchers have developed a new ingestible capsule that can release insulin directly into the stomach and could be used to treat type 2 diabetes, reports Joe Palca for NPR. "We chose the stomach as the site of delivery because we recognized that the stomach is a thick and robust part of the GI tract," explains visiting scientist Giovanni Traverso.
Wired reporter Megan Molteni writes that MIT researchers have developed an ingestible capsule that could be used to deliver insulin to diabetes patients. The researchers were inspired by the leopard tortoise to create a self-orienting device that can position itself to deliver medication directly into the stomach. “The result was a roly-poly-pill that autonomously rights itself to be needle-down,” Molteni explains.
Associated Press reporter Lauran Neergaard writes that MIT researchers have created a pea-sized pill that, once swallowed, can deliver medications such as insulin directly to the stomach. “The way this works is it travels down the esophagus in seconds, it’s in the stomach within a few minutes, and then you get the drug,” explains visiting scientist Giovanni Traverso.
Inspired by the shell of a leopard tortoise, MIT researchers have developed a self-orienting ingestible capsule that can deliver doses of medication to the stomach, writes Megan Thielking for STAT. “If we’re able to deliver large molecules orally, it would not only change drug delivery but also drug discovery,” says Prof. Robert Langer.
A team of MIT researchers has created a tiny ingestible device that deliver medications such as insulin directly to the stomach and could replace the daily injections used to treat diabetes patients, reports Alice Park for TIME. “We see no reason why someday this couldn’t be used to deliver any protein to the body,” says Prof. Robert Langer.