Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES)

A black cartridge containing a paper-based diagnostic for detecting the Zika virus is held up by a researcher at Harvard's Wyss Institute. Areas that have turned purple indicate samples infected with Zika, while yellow areas indicate samples that are free of the virus.

A new paper-based test for the Zika virus

Inexpensive device can diagnose Zika in just a few hours.

May 6, 2016

Clockwise from top left: Arup Chakraborty, Nancy Lynch, David Sabatini, and Hidde Ploegh

National Academy of Sciences elects four MIT professors

Chakraborty, Lynch, Ploegh, and Sabatini honored for research achievements.

May 3, 2016

Good medicine

Varesh Prasad, an MIT graduate student in health sciences and technology, is creating a multidisciplinary future in health care.

April 26, 2016

(Left to right) Matteo Ligorio, Laura Indolfi, and Elazer Edelman.

Implantable device targets pancreatic cancer

Chemotherapy delivered directly to tumors may slow the disease.

April 14, 2016

James Collins appointed 2016 Allen Distinguished Investigator

Award will support the engineering of safe, frequently consumed bacteria to detect and kill dangerous bacteria such as those causing drug-resistant infections.

April 13, 2016

MIT spinout Synlogic is re-programming bacteria found in the gut as "living therapeutics" to treat major diseases and rare genetic disorders.

Reprogramming gut bacteria as “living therapeutics”

Daily doses of synthetic biotics developed by startup Synologic may sense, treat metabolic diseases.

April 5, 2016

Thomas Heldt (left) with Massachusetts General Hospital collaborator Michael Filbin.

Big, intensive data

Assistant Professor Thomas Heldt mines critical care data to support real-time clinical decision making and improve patient care.

March 31, 2016

Left: Lipid nanoparticles (carrying siRNA) are shown as they are transported inside cells using endocytic vesicles. Right: Gehrke's lab is developing a diagnostic for Dengue virus, a relative to Zika. The device shown, which tested for Ebola, has silver nanoparticles of different colors that indicate different diseases. On the left is the unused device, opened to reveal the contents inside. On the...

Confronting Zika

MIT's Institute of Medical Engineering and Science is on the front lines of efforts to diagnose and develop a vaccine against the emerging Zika virus.

February 23, 2016

“It’s important to understand how the process of fluid breakup happens,” says Lydia Bourouiba. “What is the physics telling us in terms of droplet size distribution, that we can use downstream to predict range of contamination?”

Sneezing produces complex fluid cascade, not a simple spray

High-speed imaging shows how fluid breaks apart in air, may help identify super-spreaders.

February 10, 2016

“This finding really excites us because it makes us think that this is a gene repair system that could be used to treat a range of diseases — not just tyrosinemia but others as well,” Daniel Anderson says.

Curing disease by repairing faulty genes

New delivery method boosts efficiency of CRISPR genome-editing system.

February 1, 2016

A stealth material surface, shown here, has been engineered to provide an “invisibility cloak” against the body’s immune system cells. In this electron microscopy image, you can see the material's surface topography.

No more insulin injections?

Encapsulated pancreatic cells offer possible new diabetes treatment.

January 25, 2016

To track the family history for a single cell, researchers engineered a microfluidic device that traps first an individual cell and then all of its descendants. The device has several connected channels, each of which has a trapping pocket used to capture single cells in precise locations. After the initial cell grows and divides, its progeny float downstream and are captured in the next available...

Tracing a cellular family tree

New technique allows tracking of gene expression over generations of cells as they specialize.

January 6, 2016

(Clockwise from top left)
Angela M. Belcher; Sangeeta N. Bhatia; H. Robert Horvitz; and Emery N. Brown.

Four MIT faculty named 2015 fellows of the National Academy of Inventors

Belcher, Bhatia, Brown, and Horvitz recognized for demonstrating a prolific spirit of innovation and invention resulting in a tangible impact on society.

December 18, 2015

A rounded cancer cell (top left) sends out nanotubes connecting with endothelial cells. Genetic material can be injected via these nanotubes, transforming the endothelial cells and making them more hospitable to additional cancer cells.

Scientists discover how cancer cells escape blood vessels

Study offers new targets for drugs that may prevent cancer from spreading.

December 16, 2015

To prevent genetically modified bacteria from escaping into the wider environment, researchers have developed safeguards in the form of two so-called “kill switches,” which they call “Deadman” and “Passcode.” These kill switches can cause synthetic bacteria to die without the presence of certain chemicals.

“Kill switches” shut down engineered bacteria

Synthetic biology technique could make it safer to put engineered microbes to work outside the lab.

December 11, 2015

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