The Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT ( ; also referred to as the Koch Institute, KI, or CCR/KI) is a

cancer research Cancer research is research into cancer to identify causes and develop strategies for prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and cure. Cancer research ranges from epidemiology, molecular bioscience to the performance of clinical trials to evaluate and ...

center affiliated with the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

(MIT) located in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. The institute is one of eight National Cancer Institute-designated basic

research centers A research institute, research centre, research center or research organization, is an establishment founded for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research. Although the term often im ...

in the United States. The institute was launched in October 2007 with a $100 million grant from

David H. Koch David Hamilton Koch ( ; May 3, 1940 – August 23, 2019) was an American businessman, political activist, philanthropist, and chemical engineer. In 1970, he joined the family business: Koch Industries, the second largest privately held c ...

and the research facility opened in December 2010, replacing the MIT Center for Cancer Research (CCR). The institute is affiliated with 25 MIT faculty members in both the Schools of Engineering and

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...

History

In 1974, the Center for Cancer Research was founded by 1969 Nobel laureate

Salvador Luria Salvador Edward Luria (August 13, 1912 – February 6, 1991) was an Italian microbiologist, later a Naturalized citizen of the United States#Naturalization, naturalized U.S. citizen. He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1969, with ...

to study basic biological processes related to cancer. The center researches the genetic and molecular basis of cancer, how alterations in cellular processes affect cell growth and behavior, and how the immune system develops and recognizes antigens. The CCR was both a physical research center as well as an organizing body for the larger MIT cancer research community of over 500 researchers. Financial support for the CCR primarily came from Center Core grant from the National Cancer Institute as well as research project grants from the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and foundation support. The CCR research groups were successful in identifying

oncogene An oncogene is a gene that has the potential to cause cancer. In tumor cells, these genes are often mutated, or expressed at high levels.

s, immunology of

T lymphocytes A T cell is a type of lymphocyte. T cells are one of the important white blood cells of the immune system and play a central role in the adaptive immune response. T cells can be distinguished from other lymphocytes by the presence of a T-cell rec ...

, and roles of various cellular proteins. The CCR produced four Nobel Laureates:

David Baltimore David Baltimore (born March 7, 1938) is an American biologist, university administrator, and 1975 Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine. He is President Emeritus and Distinguished Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technol ...

(1975), Susumu Tonegawa (1987),

Phillip Sharp Phillip Allen Sharp (born June 6, 1944) is an American geneticist and molecular biologist who co-discovered RNA splicing. He shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Richard J. Roberts for "the discovery that genes in eukaryo ...

(1993), and

H. Robert Horvitz Howard Robert Horvitz ForMemRS NAS AAA&S APS NAM (born May 8, 1947) is an American biologist best known for his research on the nematode worm ''Caenorhabditis elegans'', for which he was awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, t ...

(2002). In 2006, President

Susan Hockfield Susan Hockfield (born March 24, 1951) is an American neuroscientist who served as the sixteenth president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from December 2004 through June 2012. Hockfield succeeded Charles M. Vest and was succeeded by ...

announced plans for a new CCR center to support and expand cancer research performed by biologists and engineers. A $20 million grant was made by the Ludwig Fund, part of

Ludwig Cancer Research Ludwig Cancer Research is an international community of scientists focused on cancer research, with the goal of preventing and controlling cancer. It encompasses the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, an international non-profit organization f ...

, in November 2007 to support a Center for Molecular Oncology to be administered by the CCR. In 2007, MIT announced it had received a $100 million gift from

, the executive vice president of the oil conglomerate

Koch Industries Koch Industries, Inc. ( ) is an American privately held multinational conglomerate corporation based in Wichita, Kansas and is the second-largest privately held company in the United States, after Cargill. Its subsidiaries are involved in the ...

. Koch graduated from MIT with bachelor's and master's degrees in

chemical engineering Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials int ...

and served on the university's board of directors since 1988. Koch survived a prostate cancer diagnosis in 1992, previously donated $25 million over ten years to MIT to support cancer research, and is the namesake of the university's

Koch Biology Building The Massachusetts Institute of Technology occupies a tract in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The campus spans approximately one mile (1.6 km) of the north side of the Charles River basin directly opposite the Back Bay neigh ...

. Half of the gift will go towards construction of the estimated $240–$280 million facility and half will pay for research, on the condition that MIT builds the center even if fund raising falls short.

Mission

The Koch Institute emphasizes basic research into how cancer is caused, progresses, and responds to treatment. Unlike many other NCI Cancer Centers, it will not provide medical care or conduct clinical research but it has partnered with oncology centers such as the Massachusetts General Hospital's Cancer Center. The institute combines the existing faculty of the CCR with an equivalent number of engineering faculty to promote interdisciplinary approaches to diagnosing, monitoring, and treating cancer. The Koch Institute has identified five areas of research that it believes are critical for controlling

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

: Developing nanotechnology-based cancer therapeutics, creating novel devices for cancer detection and monitoring, exploring the molecular and cellular basis of

metastasis Metastasis is a pathogenic agent's spread from an initial or primary site to a different or secondary site within the host's body; the term is typically used when referring to metastasis by a cancerous tumor. The newly pathological sites, then ...

, advancing personalized medicine through analysis of cancer pathways and drug resistance, engineering the

immune system The immune system is a network of biological processes that protects an organism from diseases. It detects and responds to a wide variety of pathogens, from viruses to parasitic worms, as well as cancer cells and objects such as wood splint ...

to fight cancer.

Affiliates

The Koch Institute is home to faculty members from various departments, including Biology, Chemistry, Mechanical Engineering, and Biological Engineering; more than 40 laboratories and 500 researchers across the campus. Koch Institute faculty teach classes at MIT, as well as train graduate and undergraduate students as well as postdoctoral fellows. The Koch Institute is affiliated with two current Nobel Laureates (Horvitz and Sharp), eighteen members of the National Academy of Sciences, eight members of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...

, five

National Medal of Science The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social scienc ...

laureates, and ten Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators, and one

MacArthur Foundation Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...

recipient. Notable faculty members affiliated with the Koch Institute include:

Building

The research facility is located on the corner of Main Street and Ames Street near

Kendall Square Kendall Square is a neighborhood in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The square itself at the intersection of Main Street and Broadway. It also refers to the broad business district east of Portland Street, northwest of the Charles River, north of MIT ...

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...

. The building is located opposite the

Whitehead Institute Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research is a non-profit research institute located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States that is dedicated to improving human health through basic biomedical research. It was founded as a fiscally indepen ...

and

Broad Institute The Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (IPA: , pronunciation respelling: ), often referred to as the Broad Institute, is a biomedical and genomic research center located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The institu ...

and near the biology and chemical engineering buildings on the north-eastern end of MIT's campus. MIT broke ground on Building 76 in March 2008, a topping-off ceremony was held in February 2009, and the building was dedicated on March 4, 2011. The building was designed by Cambridge-based architecture fir
Ellenzweig
which designed several other buildings on the MIT campus. The structural engineer was LeMessurier. Designed to encourage interaction and collaboration, the building employs both dedicated lab space as well as common areas, and features a ground-floor gallery exhibiting art and technical displays related to biomedical research. The building includes facilities for bioinformatics and computing, genomics,

proteomic Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteins. Proteins are vital parts of living organisms, with many functions such as the formation of structural fibers of muscle tissue, enzymatic digestion of food, or synthesis and replication of DNA. In ...

s and flow cytometry, large-scale cell and animal facilities for genetic engineering and testing, advanced imaging equipment, and nanomaterials characterization labs.

Activity since 2007

The KI remains funded by a NCI center grant as well as 110 fully funded projects. Research volume in 2007–2008 totaled $24.5 million. , notable grants include Mouse Models of Cancer Consortium, Integrative Cancer Biology Program, and the Centers for Excellence in Nanotechnology and Cancer. In 2011, scientists at the institute pinpointed a genetic change that makes lung cancer more likely to spread around the body and may help scientists develop new drugs to fight secondary tumors. In 2020, Alex K. Shalek, Christopher Love, Travis Hughes and Marc Wadsworth developed an updated protocol for the commonly used low-input RNA sequencing method Seq-Well, increasing output resolution by ten times.

References

External links

*
Interview with Tyler Jacks
{{DEFAULTSORT:Koch Institute For Integrative Cancer Research 2007 establishments in Massachusetts Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, David H. Koch Cancer organizations based in the United States Massachusetts Institute of Technology NCI-designated cancer centers Medical and health organizations based in Massachusetts