As scientists gain a deeper understanding of the microbiome's complex ecology, particularly in the gut, it is increasingly clear that our microbiome's diversity, globally speaking, is under threat. Read more
 

For Tchelet Segev's master’s thesis, she is working with the Center for Environmental Health Sciences and the Passamaquoddy, a Native American tribe, to analyze the water quality and associated health risks in a region of northeast Maine. As part of this project, Segev has led community meetings and worked with local residents to collect and test water samples. Read more

Chemistry professor builds on nature to design new drugs and engineer better ways to deliver them. Scientists who want to treat disease by delivering large proteins such as antibodies or enzymes to cells have struggled to overcome one major bottleneck: getting the proteins to cross cell membranes so they can enter the target cells... Read more

Katharina Ribbeck studies the sticky substance to uncover its impacts on health and disease.

In 2007, Katharina Ribbeck spent a year as a visiting scientist at Harvard Medical School. While there, she heard about a fellowship offered at Harvard that would provide the recipient with a lab, startup funding, and status as an independent investigator. The catch? Applicants had to propose starting a new field of study... Read more

Human tissue samples linked by microfluidic channels replicate interactions of multiple organs.

MIT engineers have developed new technology that could be used to evaluate new drugs and detect possible side effects before the drugs are tested in humans. Using a microfluidic platform that connects engineered tissues from up to 10 organs, the researchers can accurately replicate human organ interactions for weeks at a time, allowing them to measure the effects of drugs on different parts of the body... Read more

A new protein may allow researchers to home in on individual neurons, determining their activity minute by minute.

When optogenetics burst onto the scene a little over a decade ago, it added a powerful tool to neuroscientists’ arsenal. Instead of merely correlating recorded brain activity with behaviors, researchers could control the cell types of their choosing to produce specific outcomes. Light-sensitive ion channels (opsins) inserted into the cells allow neuronal activity to be controlled by the flick of a switch... Read more

New finding suggests differences in how humans and bacteria control production of DNA’s building blocks... Read more

New cancer research initiative eyes individualized treatment for patients. Details matter — perhaps most noticeably in the fight against cancer.  Some patients respond to a given anticancer therapy, and some do not. A new initiative at MIT takes aim at those details, and the name of the game is precision... Read more

A team from MIT found that microbial communities are able to form despite rapidly varying conditions... Read more

Research shows the Clean Air Act was likely responsible for a dramatic decline in atmospheric organic aerosol... 

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