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Our muscles are nature’s actuators. The sinewy tissue is what generates the forces that make our bodies move. In recent years, engineers have used real muscle tissue to actuate “biohybrid robots”...
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Peripheral nerves, the network connecting the brain, spinal cord and central nervous system to the rest of the body, transmit sensory information, control muscle movements, and regulate automatic...
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Acute Mesenteric Ischemia (AMI), a condition where the blood supply to the intestines is reduced or blocked, can lead to tissue damage or even death if not treated promptly. Thousands of people are...
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Anchorage-dependent cells are cells that require physical attachment to a solid surface, such as a culture dish, to survive, grow, and reproduce. In the biomedical industry, and others, having the...
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Every Monday, more than a hundred members of Giovanni Traverso’s Laboratory for Translational Engineering (L4TE) fill a large classroom at Brigham and Women’s Hospital for their weekly lab meeting....
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Pills are by far the most convenient form of cancer treatment, but most oral cancer drugs quickly dissolve in the stomach, delivering a burst of chemicals into the bloodstream all at once. That can...
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To help mitigate climate change, companies are using bioreactors to grow algae and other microorganisms that are hundreds of times more efficient at absorbing CO2 than trees. Meanwhile, in the...
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The field of tissue engineering aims to replicate the structure and function of real biological tissues. This engineered tissue has potential applications in disease modeling, drug discovery, and...
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When cells are healthy, we don’t expect them to suddenly change cell types. A skin cell on your hand won’t naturally morph into a brain cell, and vice versa. That’s thanks to epigenetic memory, which...
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Using artificial intelligence, MIT researchers have come up with a new way to design nanoparticles that can more efficiently deliver RNA vaccines and other types of RNA therapies.
After training a...
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Water makes up around 60 percent of the human body. More than half of this water sloshes around inside the cells that make up organs and tissues. Much of the remaining water flows in the nooks and...
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Measuring the density of a cell can reveal a great deal about the cell’s state. As cells proliferate, differentiate, or undergo cell death, they may gain or lose water and other molecules, which is...
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MIT engineers have devised a new way to deliver certain drugs in higher doses with less pain, by injecting them as a suspension of tiny crystals. Once under the skin, the crystals assemble into a...
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We move thanks to coordination among many skeletal muscle fibers, all twitching and pulling in sync. While some muscles align in one direction, others form intricate patterns, helping parts of the...
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The complex biochemical environment, rapid turnover of mucus and surface epithelium, and constant motility in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract present significant challenges for disease treatment,...
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Treating severe or chronic injury to soft tissues such as skin and muscle is a challenge in health care. Current treatment methods can be costly and ineffective, and the frequency of chronic wounds...
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About 60 percent of all cancer patients in the United States receive radiation therapy as part of their treatment. However, this radiation can have severe side effects that often end up being too...
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Within the animal kingdom, mussels are masters of underwater adhesion. The marine molluscs cluster atop rocks and along the bottoms of ships, and hold fast against the ocean’s waves thanks to a gluey...
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Eleven MIT faculty, including nine from the School of Engineering and two from the School of Science, were awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). More than...
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Metabolic imaging is a noninvasive method that enables clinicians and scientists to study living cells using laser light, which can help them assess disease progression and treatment responses.
But...