November Bulletin

Issue 74

Community Notices

Danaher Nanomedicine Day at the MIT Koch Institute.

There is still just a few spots left! Come join us at this year’s Danaher Nanomedicine Day. The event will convene members of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT and Danaher-affiliated companies working on nano- and precision based biomedical technologies, including Leica, Integrated DNA Technologies, Aldevron, and Precision Nanosystems.

REGISTER

Apply for the GO NANO Grant (deadline November 18)

The goal of the Marble Center for Cancer Nanomedicine’s Global Oncology Nano (GO Nano) Request for Proposal (RFP) is to support MIT investigators in advancing innovative ideas to solve global oncology challenges and support underserved cancer patients around the world. Research funded by the GO Nano RFP will leverage advances in miniaturized technologies to collaboratively address disparities and differences in cancer prevention, early detection, and care, while ensuring affordability and impact in low-resource settings.

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Congratulations to this Year’s Class of Convergence Scholars

We are excited to announce the 2022-2023 class of Convergence Scholars from the Marble Center for Cancer Nanomedicine and the MIT Center for Precision Cancer Medicine (CPCM):

Koch Institute Marble Center scholars: Jacob Witten (Anderson Lab), Elizabeth Calle (Langer Lab), BJ Kim (Irvine Lab), Susanna Elledge (Bhatia Lab), Shalmalee Pandit (Belcher lab), and Gil Covarrubias (Hammond lab).
MIT Center for Precision Cancer Medicine scholars: Keith Eidell (Hemann lab), Andrea Casiraghi (Koehler lab), Malte Roerden (Spranger lab), and Sophie Herbst (White lab).

In the News

Nanosensors target enzymes to monitor and study cancer

(MIT News) In work recently published in Nature Communications, researchers from the MIT Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research have developed a set of enzyme-targeting nanoscale tools to monitor cancer progression and treatment response in real time, map enzyme activity to precise locations within a tumor, and isolate relevant cell populations for analysis.

“We hope that this new suite of tools can be useful in the clinic and the lab alike,” says Sangeeta Bhatia, the John J. and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Health Sciences and Technology, professor of electrical engineering the computer science, and senior author of the study. “With further development, the nanosensors could be used by clinicians to tailor treatments to a patient’s specific cancer, and to monitor cancer progression and treatment response, while researchers could use them to better understand the molecular biology of cancer and develop new tools to diagnose, track, and treat the disease.” Read more…

Hate needles? Flu vaccines of the future could be skin patches delivered to your door.

(Boston Globe) In the future, getting a flu shot might be as easy as opening the mailbox and slapping a skin patch on your arm. Immunizations shipped to doorsteps around the globe is the dream of Michael Schrader, chief executive and cofounder of Vaxess. For more than a decade, the Cambridge startup — whose name is a portmanteau of “vaccine” and “access” — has inched toward the creation of a vaccine that’s easy to use, doesn’t require refrigeration, and releases slowly in the skin for a stronger immune response.

In 2014, Schrader saw a paper from MIT scientists Darrell Irvine and Paula Hammond that paired the stabilizing properties of silk with a microneedle patch to make a vaccine that released slowly in the skin over a couple of weeks to spur stronger immune responses. “It was a perfect extension of our work,” Schrader said. Read more…

U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) publishes two new oncology draft guidances

The FDA recently published two new draft guidance documents for oncology. The documents, linked below, are available for public comment until December 19, 2022:

Characterizing, Collecting, and Reporting Immune-Mediated Adverse Reactions (imARs) in Cancer Immunotherapeutic Clinical Trials: This guidance is intended for sponsors of cancer immunotherapeutic drugs that modulate the endogenous immune system and may break immunologic tolerance to normal organs and tissues; it provides recommendations regarding the data that should be collected and evaluated to assess whether adverse events are immune-mediated adverse reactions (imARs) and the data on imARs that should be included in a new drug application (NDA) or biologics license application (BLA) for a cancer immunotherapeutic drug.
Tissue Agnostic Drug Development in Oncology: This draft guidance describes the development of tissue agnostic drugs, scientific considerations in determining when tissue agnostic oncology drug development may be appropriate, and, if appropriate, issues to be addressed during such development. Tissue agnostic drug development may expedite or enable the development of new therapies for patients with rare cancer types.

Jobs

82VS Venture Fellowship at Alloy Therapeutics.

As a Fellow, you will have exposure to biotechnology company building and investing. Fellows at Alloy Venture Studios will be exposed to all aspects of new company building including science, clinical translation, strategy, operations, and legal. The fellowship will be a part-time role of 10-15 hours per week for ~6 months. This fellowship will be based in the greater Boston area with fellows working remotely and with the Venture Studios team in Waltham, MA. This role is for PhD or MD candidates in later years of grad school, or Postdocs across the biotechnology ecosystem. This role requires a tremendous passion for advancing science into medicines for patients. Deadline for applications is 5pm EST November 11th; apply HERE.

Senior Scientist Formulation Non-viral Gene Therapy.

Sanofi is seeking a motivated Senior Scientist in the non-viral gene therapy Research Area who will be a scientific innovator, driver of excellence, and a developer of cutting-edge therapeutics to treat various genetic diseases. They will join a motivated and collaborative team to expand and deepen the team’s expertise in lipid nanoparticle formulation as it relates to delivery of genetic materials to targeted cells. They will communicate research results internally and externally through publications, patents, and presentations, and collaborate with diverse teams of scientists and clinicians to advance therapies through the drug discovery pipeline. The position is in Waltham, Massachusetts. Read more…