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What Am I Thankful for This Year? Amazing Scientific Discoveries.

I’ll wager that the event of 2023 that will change our lives the most in coming years is not the sighting of a Chinese spy balloon, the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, the fall of Kevin McCarthy’s speakership or any of the other eruptions that transfixed us this year.

More likely, the event that’s judged most transformative will be some scientific or technological advance that only a handful of people know about right now — because that’s how things almost always go. The first time the word “transistor” appeared in print was in an article in The New York Times in 1948, on Page 46, following a report on two new radio shows, “Mr. Tutt” and “Our Miss Brooks.” I think we can agree that the transistor has had more impact on our daily lives in the 75 years since than either of those bits of entertainment. Learn more
Person wearing a lab coat, goggles, and gloves looking at a screen atop a microscope.

9 new breakthroughs in the fight against cancer

Lung cancer kills more people in the US yearly than the next three deadliest cancers combined. It's notoriously hard to detect the early stages of the disease with X-rays and scans alone. However, MIT scientists have developed an AI learning model to predict a person's likelihood of developing lung cancer up to six years in advance via a low-dose CT scan. Learn more
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Diagram of AI-driven antibiotic discovery

Antibiotic identified by AI

Computational approaches are emerging as powerful tools for the discovery of antibiotics. A study now uses machine learning to discover abaucin, a potent antibiotic that targets the bacterial pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii. Learn more
Five MIT faculty members are among the 12 MIT affiliates and 100 total new members of the National Academy of Medicine. Clockwise from top left: Daniel Anderson, Regina Barzilay, Guoping Feng, Morgan Sheng, and Darrell Irvine.
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Using AI, scientists find a drug that could combat drug-resistant infections

The machine-learning algorithm identified a compound that kills Acinetobacter baumannii, a bacterium that lurks in many hospital settings. Learn more
Group of high school students posing for a group photo with MIT President Emerita Susan Hockfield

How to help high schoolers prepare for the rise of artificial intelligence

A one-week summer program aims to foster a deeper understanding of machine-learning approaches in health among curious young minds. Learn more

Generative AI Imagines New Protein Structures

“FrameDiff” is a computational tool that uses generative AI to craft new protein structures, with the aim of accelerating drug development and improving gene therapy. Learn more

Is medicine ready for AI? Doctors, computer scientists, and policymakers are cautiously optimistic

With the artificial intelligence conversation now mainstream, the 2023 MIT-MGB AI Cures conference saw attendance double from previous years. Learn more

Promising new AI can detect early signs of lung cancer that doctors can’t see

Researchers in Boston are on the verge of what they say is a major advancement in lung cancer screening: Artificial intelligence that can detect early signs of the disease years before doctors would find it on a CT scan.

The new AI tool, called Sybil, was developed by scientists at the Mass General Cancer Center and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. In one study, it was shown to accurately predict whether a person will develop lung cancer in the next year 86% to 94% of the time. Learn more
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