Russ Jenkins MD, PhD: Patient-derived organotypic spheroids to study immunotherapy response

Koch Institute Luria Auditorium

33rd Annual Irwin M. Arias Symposium

The first Irwin M. Arias, M.D. Symposium was held in 1991, and the theme of the event was – as it remains today – Bridging Basic Science and Liver Disease.

This unique one-day program brings together hundreds of leading biomedical scientists and physicians from across the globe and is designed to bridge the remarkable advances in basic biology and engineering with the understanding of liver diseases and their treatment. Research presented over the past 33 years has led to advances in the diagnosis and treatment of virtually all liver diseases in children and adults.

With plenary talks from renowned researchers and a collection of three-minute micro talks delivered by trainee scientists, the Arias Symposium is a model in ‘bridging’ between the academic, industrial, and clinical research communities – even across disciplines.

The 2024 symposium will be offered both in-person and virtually. In-person attendees will benefit from a poster session and networking opportunities with plenary speakers and other attendees. Breakfast, lunch, and a networking reception will also be provided to in-person attendees. Registration is free for all trainees (postdocs, fellows, grad. students, undergrads, etc.). Registration is $50 for in-person attendees other than trainees. Virtual attendance is free but requires registration.

We welcome participation from researchers at every stage of their careers, and invite them to share perspectives from their academic, industrial, and clinical research settings. Trainees and early-career investigators who are interested in presenting a micro-talk (in-person or virtually) or poster (in-person only) should submit an abstract with their registration. The deadline to submit an abstract is November 1, 2024.

For queries related to Arias Symposium corporate sponsorship, please contact Heidi Daniels, HDaniels@liverfoundation.org.

Advancing Medical Applications of Cancer Nanotechnology: Celebrating Two Successful Decades of the NCI’s Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory Service to the Research Community

The Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory (NCL) has made significant strides in advancing cancer nanotechnology over the past two decades. Established by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in 2004 in collaboration with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the NCL has played a crucial role in bridging the gap between nanotechnology innovations and their clinical applications in oncology. The NCL serves as a resource and knowledgebase for all cancer researchers—academia, industry, and government—to facilitate the development and clinical translation of novel nanotechnologies intended as cancer therapeutics, vaccines, and diagnostics. 

NCL’s key contributions to the field of nanomedicine include standardization and characterization of nanoparticles to ensure that nanotechnologies meet the safety, efficacy, and quality standards required for clinical trials; worldwide support for nanotechnology developers by offering expertise in physicochemical characterization, immunological testing, toxicology, and pharmacokinetics; assisting collaborators in overcoming challenges such as toxicity, targeting efficiency, and scalability through comprehensive evaluation and feedback; and helping navigate the complexities of nanotechnology development, guiding researchers towards safer and more effective nanomedicines, facilitating the translation of promising nanotechnologies from the bench to the clinic. 

Numerous nanotechnology-based cancer therapies have emerged from NCL-supported research, with dozens of concepts entering clinical trials, showing promise in improving treatment outcomes and patient quality of life. To celebrate two successful decades of the NCL’s contributions to advancing the field of cancer nanotechnology, this symposium brings together NCL scientists, collaborators, and researchers applying nanotechnology to improve current treatment strategies and develop innovative therapies, vaccines, and diagnostics to combat cancer and the detrimental side-effects of many existing standard of care treatments.

Decarbonization through Biomanufacturing: Sustainable Production of Next-Generation Fats and Oils

David Heller

Co-Founder and COO

C16 Biosciences, Inc.

Location: 32-141

KI Oncology Seminar Series:

Kay MacLeod, PhD, University of Chicago

Luria Auditorium

Biopolymers to Boost Food Security: From Lab Discovery to Business and Future Opportunities

Benedetto Marelli

Associate Professor

MIT Civil & Environmental Engineering

Location: 32-141

Clinical Implementation of Artificial Intelligence Technologies

Danielle Bitterman MD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

12-1pm, Koch Institute Luria Auditorium

Dr. Bitterman is a physician-scientist with unique expertise in AI and natural language processing.  Her research is dedicated to incorporating technological advances in AI into intelligent electronic health systems to improve data-driven cancer care.  Dr. Bitterman's laboratory develops natural language processing methods that process vast amounts of data contained within electronic health records to provide insights individualized to each patient and facilitate more effective communication between patients, caregivers, and clinicians.  This work includes automating information extraction from text across multiple clinical and biomedical domains and applying deep learning-based language models to support clinical decision-making and patient education.  Dr. Bitterman's clinical translational efforts also include prospective clinical trials regarding the use of AI technologies in cancer care.  Dr. Bitterman and her team have published multiple high impact articles on these topics in journals such as Nature Medicine, JAMA Oncology, and Lancet Digital Health, and Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology.

Dr. Bitterman received her undergraduate degree at Columbia University, and attended medical school at New York University School of Medicine. She completed an internship in internal medicine at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, and her residency at the Harvard Radiation Oncology Program. She completed her post-doctoral fellowship in natural language processing at the Computational Health Informatics Program at Boston Children's Hospital.

Celebrating the Impact of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology! 

The Nano Summit serves as the flagship conference for MIT.nano, showcasing groundbreaking advancements in nanoscience and nanotechnology. This year's summit will delve into the transformative impact of nanoscience as it relates to microscopy, materials science, AI and machine learning, hard technology, human health, and more. The summit is ideal for researchers, industry professionals, entrepreneurs, and students interested in the latest developments in cutting-edge research, emerging technologies, and real-world applications.

More details will be added as they are announced. 

KI Oncology Seminar Series:

Jennifer Guerriero, PhD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Luria Auditorium

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the American Cancer Society (ACS) invite entrepreneurs developing cancer technologies to improve women's health to discuss the journey with the women leaders in the area! Panelists include NCI Director Dr. Kimryn Rathmell and VP of ACS extramural research Dr. Christina Annunziata, as well as women CEOs that are making an impact in the area.

This is a hybrid event, to be held at Portal Innovations Southline. Please select your preferred participation (in-person or online) in the attendance application.

Event Agenda

2:30-3:00 p.m. - Introduction and opening comments

3:00-4:00 p.m. - Fireside Chat with NCI Director, Dr. Kimryn Rathmell and Christina Annunziata, MD, PhD, Senior Vice President, Extramural Discovery Science at American Cancer Society

4:15-5:15 p.m. - Panel Discussion on Advancing Technology Development for Women’s Health (panelists below)

• Dawn Mattoon, Ph.D., CEO, Mercy BioAnalytics

• Anu Parvatiyar, Co-founder CEO, Ananya Health

• Maria Luisa Pineda, Ph.D., Co-founder & CEO, Envisagenics

• Eve McDavid, CEO & Co-founder, Mission-Driven Tech

• Shadi Saberi, Ph.D., Founder & CTO, iSono Health

• Kristin Sherman, CEO, Kovina Therapeutics

5:30-7:30 p.m.     Portal Pours Networking Reception 

KI Oncology Seminar Series:

Steven Elledge, PhD, Harvard University and Brigham & Women’s

Luria Auditorium

Kimmie Ng MD, MPH: Early-onset colorectal cancer

Koch Institute Luria Auditorium

What is the MIT Hacking Medicine BioxAI Pitch Event?

The next generation’s biggest innovations might be in the lab across the street from yours.

• The BioxAI Pitch Event will be an opportunity to bring together budding entrepreneurs from various MIT departments, namely PhD students and postdocs, applying ML/AI to biological questions. For example, early stage founders will pitch for co-founders. Founders and individuals who want to join a team will likewise pitch themselves.

• This will be an opportunity to learn from guests within and outside MIT, including NSF, CSAIL Alliances, and the Martin Trust Center. Pitch requirements include a maximum of 2 minutes.

Is this the right event for you? 

The BioxAI Pitch Event aims to help MIT PhD students and postdocs working at the interface of biology, specifically protein biology/drug discovery fields, and ML/AI who:

- are interested in scaling up their early stage venture 

- finding a cofounder  

- joining a team of cofounders*

KI Oncology Seminar Series:

Gloria Brar, PhD, UC Berkeley

Luria Auditorium

Fireside Chat on the Bioeconomy

Tom Kalil, CEO, Renaissance Philanthropy

Georgia Lagoudas, former Senior Advisor for Biotechnology & Bioeconomy, Biden White House OSTP

Mark Bathe, Professor, MIT Biological Engineering

Otto Cordero, Associate Professor, MIT Civil & Environmental Engineering

The Launch of the National Bioeconomy Initiative: Policy Perspectives from the White House

Georgia Lagoudas, former Senior Advisor for Biotechnology & Bioeconomy, Biden White House OSTP

Location: 32-141

KI Oncology Seminar Series: Engineering cell-type selective cytokines via cis-targeting

Kelly Moynihan, PhD, Asher Biotherapeutics

Luria Auditorium

Sandro Santagata MD, PhD: New Horizons in Pathology: Innovations in Multiplexed Tissue Imaging for Discovery and Diagnostics

Koch Institute Luria Auditorium

OPTICAL IMAGING IN NEUROSURGERY 2024

Simches Research Center, 185 Cambridge Street, Boston, MA 02114, United States

The Optical Imaging in Neurosurgery Meeting is a gathering of optical imaging experts and neurosurgeons who share a common goal of improving visualization in surgery. This event aims to function both as a showcase of cutting-edge optical imaging technologies and a forum for addressing unmet clinical needs that could potentially be solved by optics-based methods. Through presentation and organized discussion, this meeting seeks to bridge the gap between technological advancement and clinical requirements.

TARGET AUDIENCE

This activity is intended for neurosurgeons, optical imaging specialists and engineers. 

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Upon completion of this activity, participants will be able to:

1. Describe the latest advances in optical imaging that are suitable for neurosurgical applications.

2. Identify current unmet needs in neurosurgical visualization.

3. Recognize challenges associated with clinical translation of optical tools in neurosurgery.

Friday, June 21, 2024
8:00 a.m. – 4:35 p.m.

Huntington Hall, 10-250

Register on Eventbrite

The 22nd Annual Koch Institute Symposium on Tumor Heterogeneity and Drug Resistance will take place on Friday, June 21, 2024. This year's speaker lineup features a robust array of experts, both internal to MIT and from external institutions around the US and abroad, representing multiple scientific disciplines and technical approaches that seek to better understand patient-specific variation in cancer progression and response to therapy. 

We cordially invite scientists, oncologists, and any other member of the biomedical community to join us in a day of engaging talks, stimulating conversations with colleagues, and of course camaraderie in our collective fight against cancer. As we explore issues ranging from divergent single-cell states and plasticity to mechanisms of resistance through signaling and epigenetics, please consider joining us at this year’s summer symposium hosted by MIT’s nationally recognized basic cancer center.

2024 Marble Center for Cancer Nanomedicine Poster Symposium

OPEN ONLY TO MIT AND MEMBERS OF THE MARBLE CENTER INDUSTRY PROGRAM

The 2024 Marble Center for Cancer Nanomedicine poster symposium will convene members of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and broader MIT community working on nano- and precision based approaches for the early detection and treatment of cancer.

The event will be held at the Koch Institute Luria Auditorium. This will be an in-person only event, and will be an excellent opportunity to highlight collaborative projects in this area and get feedback from faculty and industry members.

Please register by May 3rd so that we can get an accurate count for displays and catered food.

Represented industry partners: Alloy Therapeutics, Danaher Corp., FUJIFILM, and Sanofi.

Join us at MIT’s Koch Institute for a celebration of the winners of the 2024 Image Awards—and their spectacular images of life sciences and biomedical research from across the Institute.

In honor of the 50th anniversary of cancer research at MIT, we will take a look back at the history of the Image Awards and build toward a future of community, curiosity, and innovation. The reception will feature Legos, puzzles, a retrospective of our favorite past images, and a chance to mingle with the 2024 winning image creators.

Join MIT’s Koch Institute and the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center for a symposium celebrating the collaborative successes from the program’s past 10 years and exploring new partnership opportunities for future cancer research advances. Talks by past and present Bridge Project teams will be followed by a catered networking and informational event for potential new Bridge investigators.

Priority for registration will be given to PIs; if you are a PI and unable to attend, we encourage you to send a representative from your group. Potential applicants to the 2024 Bridge Project RFA (opening this June) are strongly encouraged to attend, learn more about this important funding opportunity, and explore collaborative possibilities.

This event is being held in special recognition of the role of Art Gelb—late alumnus of MIT and Harvard, lifetime member of the MIT Corporation and trustee of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute—and the Gelb family in initiating and supporting the Bridge Project.

Featured presentations from past Bridge Project teams:

Targeting minimal residual disease in acute leukemias, a collaboration between Scott Manalis of the Koch Institute and David Weinstock (now at Merck).

Quantitative Tumor Oxygen Measurements in Cervical Cancer Patients, a collaboration between Michael Cima of the Koch Institute, Robert Cormack of Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Greg Ekchian (now of Stratagen Bio).

Developing Next-Generation Personal Neoantigen-targeting Vaccines for Treatment of Patients with Metastatic Cancer, a collaboration between Catherine Wu of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Bradley Pentelute of the Koch Institute, and Patrick Ott of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Translating AI lung cancer risk models into the clinic, a collaboration between Regina Barzilay of the Koch Institute and Lecia Sequist of Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Featured presentations from ongoing Bridge Project teams:

Exploring alveolar macrophages as vehicles for collecting tumor DNA to improve early diagnosis of non-small cell lung cancer, a collaboration between Sangeeta Bhatia of the Koch Institute, Lecia Sequist of Massachusetts General Hospital, and Viktor Adalsteinsson of the Broad Institute.

Discovery and identification of optimized second-generation human CAR T cells for solid tumors, a collaboration between Marcela Maus of Massachusetts General Hospital and Michael Birnbaum of the Koch Institute.

A rapidly clinically translatable, closed-loop drug delivery system to minimize pharmacokinetic variability and improve clinical outcomes, a collaboration of Douglas Rubinson of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute with Giovanni Traverso and Robert Langer of MIT/the Koch Institute.

THE DOCTOR IS IN:

ALICE SHAW, MD, PhD

Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research

May 9, 2024, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Luria Auditorium, 76-156  

MIT community members are welcome to attend a presentation by Alice Shaw, MD, PhD, our first clinical investigator and currently the global head of translational clinical oncology at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. Before her transition to Novartis, Dr. Shaw’s research at MGH focused on molecularly defined subsets of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and their mechanisms of resistance to targeted therapies, helping to develop four FDA approved therapies for oncogene-driven NSCLC.