Prof. Pattie Maes speaks with Financial Times reporter Cristina Criddle about recent developments aimed at increasing AI memory retention. “The more a system knows about you, the more it can be used for negative purposes to either make you buy stuff or convince you of particular beliefs,” says Maes. “So you have to start thinking about the underlying incentives of the companies that offer these services.”
Tech Crunch reporter Tim De Chant spotlights Fieldstone Bio, an MIT startup that turns microbes into sensors to support agricultural and national security efforts. “Each strain is tailored to sense a particular compound, such as nitrogen on a farm field or TNT residue from a landmine,” explains De Chant. “After the microbes have some time to sense their environment — several hours to days, depending on the target — the company will have another drone snap photos of the area.”
Christian Lau PhD SM ’20, PhD ’22 and Vaikkunth Mugunthan SM ’19, PhD 22, co-founders of Dynamo AI, have been named to the 2025 Forbes 30 under 30 Asia list, reports Yue Wang, John Kang for Forbes. “Dynamo AI offers software to run tests on AI programs to identify potential risks, and prevent the models from accessing sensitive data,” they write.
Meli Beer, founded by Samara Oster MBA '22, has created the first beer in America made from quinoa, reports Doug Meehan for WCVB. "I think the point is, a beer drink experience that tastes great but also feels great in your body and doesn't feel like you’ve had a loaf of bread, or you have that heaviness or bloat, is for everyone,” explains Oster. “And so, what I really aspire to do is create a drink that everyone can enjoy.”
Emily Young '18, co-founder and CEO of MIT D-Lab spinout Moving Health, speaks with The World’s Jeremy Siegel about her startup’s commitment to transforming “maternal healthcare in rural Ghana, where access to ambulances is severely limited, by creating an emergency transportation network that uses motorized ambulances." Young discovered that “what rural communities needed most was transportation that could actually handle rough terrain while still being cost effective and easy to scale at a local level.”
Writing for Foreign Affairs, President Emeritus L. Rafael Reif makes the case that “on the battlefield of technology, Americans must both continue to do what they do best and find new ways to improve competitiveness.” Reif explores the United States’ rich history of creating foundational technologies, innovation that frequently stems from research universities. Reif emphasizes: “To avert scientific and technological stagnation, the United States must significantly increase public investments in university-based research, ensure that it capitalizes on discoveries that emerge from academia, and devise sensible immigration policies that allow the world’s best students to study and then work in the United States.”
Samara Oster MBA '22, founder of Meli, has created the “first beer brewed entirely from quinoa,” reports Eli Chavez for Boston Business Journal. “Part of the journey as of late is, how do we explain this super unique, unexpected thing to people, some of whom are skeptical and really like beers,” says Oster “For me, it's about building this better for you, beer world that kind of doesn't exist in that much of a way, just yet.”
Forbes reporter Cornelia Walther spotlights innovators from MIT Solve’s climate solver teams, which “underscore the power of AI as a catalyst for transforming change across diverse sectors.” The teams illustrate “that when carefully designed and applied, AI can deliver substantial benefits for the environment — improving operational efficiency, cutting waste and even supporting social equity,” writes Walther.
The new Hood Pediatric Innovation Hub, a cornerstone of MIT’s Health and Life Sciences Collaborative (MIT HEALS), is aimed at addressing “underinvestment in pediatric healthcare innovations,” reports Isabel Hart for the Boston Business Journal. Prof. Elazer Edelman, faculty lead for the hub, explains that: “We are trying to build a new culture providing innovation to those who have least access to it and will most benefit from it.”
Syntis Bio, a biopharmaceutical company co-founded by Prof. Giovanni Traverso and Prof. Robert Langer, is developing a daily obesity pill that mimics the effects of gastric bypass, reports Emily Mullin for Wired. “This material is something you would take as a capsule or liquid, but the next day it's gone because of the natural turnover of our mucosal surface in the GI tract,” says Traverso.
Anantha Chandrakasan, MIT’s chief innovation and strategy officer and dean of MIT’s School of Engineering, speaks with Boston Globe reporter Jon Chesto about the new MIT-GE Vernova Energy and Climate Alliance. “A great amount of innovation happens in academia. We have a longer view into the future,” says Chandrakasan. He adds that while companies like GE Vernova have “the ability to get products out quickly to scale up, to manufacture, we have the ability to think past the short-term. ... It’s super smart of them to surround themselves with this incredible talent in academia. That will allow us to make the kind of breakthroughs that will keep U.S. competitiveness at its peak.”
Writing for Science, Prof. Fiona Murray and Research Affiliate Stefan Raff-Heinen underscore the necessity of federal investment in university research, noting that “without sustained federal support, the country risks losing its technological edge, threatening economic competitiveness and national security.” Murray and Raff-Heinen write: “Translational research funding is crucial for moving discoveries and early-stage technologies from labs to real-world applications. Government support gives scientists the time to refine nascent technologies, which can be a long and uncertain process. But this approach has had substantial payoffs.”
Aaron Leanhardt PhD '03 speaks with ABC News about his work developing the “torpedo bat,” a new baseball bat design that “moves the barrel – or the thickest part – closer than usual to the batter’s hand, putting more wood in the area where the hitter is most likely to hit the ball.” Leanhardt explains: “The world of data analytics, physics, math, etc., can have such a positive impact on the game of baseball and generate so much excitement.”
E&E News reporter Christa Marshall writes that the new MIT-GE Vernova Energy and Climate Alliance will “scale sustainable energy systems across the globe” and advance breakthrough low-carbon technologies.
MIT engineers have developed a new system that helps pesticides adhere more effectively to plant leaves, allowing farmers to use fewer chemicals without sacrificing crop protection, reports Michigan Farm News. The new technology “adds a thin coating around droplets as they are being sprayed onto a field, increasing the stickiness of pesticides by as much as a hundredfold.”