MIT Engineering and the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory launch research collaboration

The International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology today began a major new collaboration that will enrich each institution's research activities in nanoscience and nanotechnology.

The two institutions will create MIT-INL, a new education and research enterprise focusing on nanotechnology. The collaboration will create 10 senior research positions for scientists who will launch an aggressive new nanotechnology research agenda, and it will enable approximately $35 million (25 million euro) of new sponsored research with MIT in its first five years. José Rivas, director-general of INL, and Subra Suresh, dean of engineering at MIT, formalized the agreement at a signing ceremony on Saturday in Lisbon.

This is the INL's first major alliance with an American academic institution. Conceived in 2005-06, founded in 2007, built in 2008-09 and opened in 2009, INL is an international research facility located in Braga, Portugal, and is a joint project of the governments of Portugal and Spain. The MIT-INL agreement leverages the Institute's especially strong reputation in materials science, engineering, nanotechnology and biotechnology.

See the MIT News Office for the full story.

Implantable device offers continuous cancer monitoring

Surgical removal of a tissue sample is now the standard for diagnosing cancer. Such procedures, known as biopsies, are accurate but only offer a snapshot of the tumor at a single moment in time.

Monitoring a tumor for weeks or months after the biopsy, tracking its growth and how it responds to treatment, would be much more valuable, says Michael Cima, MIT professor of materials science and engineering, who has developed the first implantable device that can do just that.

Cima and his colleagues recently reported that their device successfully tracked a tumor marker in mice for one month. The work is described in a paper published online in the journal Biosensors & Bioelectronics in April.

Such implants could one day provide up-to-the-minute information about what a tumor is doing -- whether it is growing or shrinking, how it's responding to treatment, and whether it has metastasized or is about to do so.

"What this does is basically take the lab and put it in the patient," said Cima, who is also an investigator at the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT.

See the MIT News Office for the full story.

Solid-State-Thermal Energy Conversion Center led by Gang Chen will be funded at $17.5M

Objective: To create novel, solid-state materials for the conversion of sunlight and heat into
electricity.

The Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) program plans to supply $17.5 million to fund the Solid-State Solar-thermal Energy Conversion Center at MIT, which will be directed by Gang Chen, the Warren and Townley Rohsenow Professor of Mechanical Engineering and director of the Pappalardo Micro and Nano Engineering Laboratories. The center's objective is to create novel solid-state materials for the conversion of sunlight and heat into electricity.

"As global energy demand grows over this century, there is an urgent need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and imported oil and curtail greenhouse gas emissions," said U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu. "Meeting this challenge will require significant scientific advances. These Centers will mobilize the enormous talents and skills of our nation's scientific workforce in pursuit of the breakthroughs that are essential to make alternative and renewable energy truly viable as large-scale replacements for fossil fuels."

See the MIT News Office for the full story.

Professor Edwin Thomas named to AAAS

Professor Ned Thomas is among the 210 new Fellows and 19 new Foreign Honorary Members recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Established in 1780 by founders of the nation, the academy undertakes studies of complex and emerging problems. Current projects focus on science, technology and global security; social policy and American institutions; the humanities and culture; and education. The academy’s membership of scholars and practitioners from many disciplines and professions gives it a unique capacity to conduct a wide range of interdisciplinary, long-term policy research.

Since the academy’s founding, its fellows have included George Washington and Benjamin Franklin in the eighteenth century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the nineteenth, and Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill in the twentieth. The current membership includes more than 250 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners.

See the MIT News Office for the full story.

Save the date!

Materials Day 2009 has been scheduled for October 7, 2009.

Materials for Energy will be the focus of this year’s Materials Day.   New materials are playing critical roles in the development of new sources for renewable and clean energy, as well as in energy conservation.  Wide ranging activities include development of new lighting and high-efficiency photovoltaic technology; lighter, stronger, and greener materials for transportation and construction; and new materials for energy harvesting, storage, and transport. 

More information and a complete agenda will be posted shortly.

New Opportunities for Research in Materials for Infrastructure and Energy Applications

The Materials Processing Center (MPC) at MIT views materials innovation as key to sustainable physical infrastructure for transportation, building, energy, and communications worldwide. This is a new area of endeavor for MPC. Already strong in research in microphotonics and microsystems, nanotechnology and biotechnology, the Center, under new director Carl Thompson, Stavros Salapatas Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, is adding new research thrusts in materials for infrastructure and materials for energy applications.

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Solving the Mysteries of Metallic Glass

Researchers at MIT have made significant progress in understanding a class of materials that has resisted analysis for decades. Their findings could lead to the rapid discovery of a variety of useful new kinds of glass made of metallic alloys with potentially significant mechanical, chemical and magnetic applications.

The first examples of metallic alloys that could be made into glass were discovered back in the late 1950s and led to a flurry of research activity, but, despite intense study, so far nobody had solved the riddle of why some specific alloys could form glasses and others could not, or how to identify the promising candidates, said Carl. V. Thompson, the Stavros Salapatas Professor of Materials Science & Engineering and director of the Materials Processing Center at MIT. A report on the new work, which describes a way to systematically find the promising mixes from among dozens of candidates, is being published this week in Science.

See the MIT News Office for the full story.

Summer Scholars Internship Program

Each year for 9 weeks during the summer, the MPC co-sponsors a Research Internship Program. The program has brought hundreds of the best science and engineering undergraduates from across the country, to conduct graduate-level materials research. This years Summer Scholar Internship Program will run from June 7 - August 8, 2009. Congratulations to the students selected to this years program.

For more information about the Internship Program please refer to the Summer Scholar Quick Facts or the FAQ portion of our website.