Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES)

Prof. Alex Shalek and his colleagues developed a deep-learning model called DrugReflector aimed at speeding up the process of drug discovery, reports Heidi Ledford for Nature. “They used DrugReflector to find chemicals that can affect the generation of platelets and red blood cells — a characteristic that could be useful in treating some blood conditions,” explains Ledford. The researchers found that “DrugReflector was up to 17 times more effective at finding relevant compounds than standard, brute-force drug screening that depends on randomly selecting compounds from a chemical library.”

Financial Times reporter Melissa Heikkilä spotlights how MIT researchers have uncovered evidence that increased use of AI tools by medical professionals risks “leading to worse health outcomes for women and ethnic minorities.” One study found that numerous AI models “recommended a much lower level of care for female patients,” writes Heikkilä. “A separate study by the MIT team showed that OpenAI’s GPT-4 and other models also displayed answers that had less compassion towards Black and Asian people seeking support for mental health problems.” 

Prof. Marzyeh Ghassemi speaks with Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray about her work uncovering issues with bias and trustworthiness in medical AI systems. “I love developing AI systems,” says Ghassemi. “I’m a professor at MIT for a reason. But it’s clear to me that naive deployments of these systems, that do not recognize the baggage that human data comes with, will lead to harm.”

Prof. Laura Lewis discusses her research exploring how the flow of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in your brain while you sleep can help eliminate “waste," like “excess proteins and other molecules that can be toxic, if not removed,” reports Lydia Denworth for Scientific American. “Lewis found that CSF also flows when people are awake but less effectively,” explains Denworth. “Lewis’s conclusion: sleep, a state that is essential for human health, has a distinct pattern of CSF flow—and that pattern changes as the stages of sleep shift.” 

Using generative AI, researchers at MT have designed new antibiotics to combat MRSA and gonorrhea, reports James Gallagher for the BBC. "We're excited because we show that generative AI can be used to design completely new antibiotics," says Prof. James Collins. "AI can enable us to come up with molecules, cheaply and quickly and in this way, expand our arsenal, and really give us a leg up in the battle of our wits against the genes of superbugs."

Researchers at MIT have designed an implantable device that can be used to administer a dose of glucagon to protect Type 1 diabetics from hypoglycemia, reports Amir Khollam. “The device, about the size of a quarter, sits under the skin and releases a dose of glucagon when blood sugar levels dip too low,” explains Khollam. “It can be activated manually or triggered wirelessly by a sensor.” 

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.”

Prof. David Sontag, Monica Agrawal PhD '23, Luke Murray SM '22, and Divya Gopinath '19, MEng '20 co-founded Layer Health - an AI healthcare startup that is applying large language models (LLMs) to help clinicians with medical chart reviews and data abstraction, reports Seth Joseph for Forbes. “The same chart review problem we’re solving with our clinical registry module is faced by clinicians at the point of care,” says Sontag. “For example, one of our next modules will focus on real-time clinical decision support to help automate clinical care pathways, leading to more reliable, high-quality care."

Researchers from MIT have “identified genes that the tuberculous bacteria rely on to survive and spread,” reports Allison DeAngelis for STAT. “Until now, very little was known about how tuberculous bacteria survived temperature changes, oxygen levels, humidity, and other environmental factors during the journey from one person’s lungs to another’s,” explains DeAngelis. 

Prof. Sarah Millholland, Prof. Christian Wolf, Prof. Emil Verner, Prof. Darcy McRose, Prof. Marzyeh Ghassemi, Prof. Mohsen Ghaffari and Prof. Ariel Furst have received the 2025 Sloan Research Fellowship for “being among the most promising scientific researchers currently working in their fields,” reports Michael T. Nietzel for Forbes. “Sloan Research Fellows are chosen in seven scientific and technical fields—chemistry, computer science, Earth system science, economics, mathematics, neuroscience, and physics,” explains Nietzel. 

Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have developed a new vaccine that “could be potentially used against a broad array of coronaviruses like the one that causes Covid-19 and potentially forestall future pandemics,” reports Alex Knapp for Forbes. “The vaccine involves attaching tiny pieces of virus that remain unchanged across related strains to a nanoparticle,” explains Knapp.

MIT Profs. Angela Belcher, Emery Brown, Paula Hammond and Feng Zhang have been honored with National Medals of Science and Technology, reports Michael T. Neitzel for Forbes. Additionally, R. Lawrence Edwards '76 received a National Medal of Science and Noubar Afeyan PhD '87, a member of the MIT Corporation, accepted a National Medal on behalf of Moderna. The recipients have been awarded “the nation’s highest honors for exemplary achievements and leadership in science and technology,” explains Neitzel. 

Prof. David Autor has been named a Senior Fellow in the Schmidt Sciences AI2050 Fellows program, and Profs. Sara Beery, Gabriele Farina, Marzyeh Ghassemi, and Yoon Kim have been named Early Career AI2050 Fellows, reports Michael T. Nietzel for Forbes. The AI2050 fellowships provide funding and resources, while challenging “researchers to imagine the year 2050, where AI has been extremely beneficial and to conduct research that helps society realize its most beneficial impacts,” explains Nietzel. 

MIT researchers have developed microneedle patches that are capable of restoring hair growth in alopecia areata patients, reports Ernie Mundell for HealthDay. The team’s approach includes a, “patch containing myriad microneedles that is applied to the scalp,” writes Mundell. “It releases drugs to reset the immune system so it stops attacking follicles.” 

Scientific American reporter Payal Dhar spotlights how MIT engineers developed a beating, biorobotic replica of the human heart that could be used to “simulate the workings of both a healthy organ and a diseased one.” The replica, "which pumps a clear fluid instead of blood, is hooked up to instruments that measure blood flow, blood pressure, and more," writes Dhar. "It’s also customizable: the user can change the heart rate, blood pressure and other parameters, then watch how these changes affect the heart’s function in real time.”