David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
Encyclopedia
The David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research ( "coke", also referred to as the Koch Institute, KI, or CCR/KI) is a cancer research
center affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) located in Cambridge
, Massachusetts
, United States
. The Institute is one of eight National Cancer Institute
-designated basic research centers
in the United States.
The Institute was launched in October 2007 with a $100 million grant from David H. Koch
and will replace the MIT Center for Cancer Research (CCR) when the 180000 square feet (16,722.5 m²) research facility opens in December 2010. The Institute is affiliated with 25 MIT faculty members in both the Schools of Engineering and Science.
Salvador Luria 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 Canter Institute as well as research project grants from the National Institutes of Health
, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
, and foundation support. The CCR research groups were successful in identifying oncogene
s, immunology of T lymphocytes, and roles of various cellular proteins. The CCR produced four Nobel Laureates: David Baltimore
(1975), Susumu Tonegawa
(1987), Phillip Sharp (1993), and H. Robert Horvitz
(2002).
In 2006, President Susan Hockfield
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
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 David H. Koch
, the executive vice president of the oil conglomerate Koch Industries
. Koch graduated from MIT with bachelors and masters degrees in chemical engineering
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 biology building. 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.
's Cancer Center. The Institute will combine the existing faculty of the CCR with an equivalent number of engineering faculty to promote new 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
: Developing nanotechnology
-based cancer therapeutics, creating novel devices for cancer detection and monitoring, exploring the molecular and cellular basis of metastasis
, advancing personalized medicine through analysis of cancer pathways and drug resistance, engineering the immune system
to fight cancer.
, one member of the National Academy of Engineering
, six National Medal of Science
laureates, and five Howard Hughes Medical Institute
investigators, and one MacArthur Foundation Fellowship recipient.
The following faculty members are formally affiliated with the Koch Institute:
in Cambridge, Massachusetts
. The building is located opposite the Whitehead Institute
and Broad Institute
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 is expected to open in December 2010. The building was dedicated on March 4, 2011.
The building was designed by Cambridge-based architecture firm Ellenzweig which designed several other buildings on the MIT campus. Designed to encourage interaction and collaboration, the building will employ both dedicated lab space as well as common areas, and will feature a ground-floor gallery exhibiting art and technical displays related to biomedical research. The building will include facilities for bioinformatics and computing, genomics, proteomics and flow cytometry
, large-scale cell and animal facilities for genetic engineering and testing, advanced imaging equipment and nanomaterials characterization labs.
In 2011, scientists at the Institute pinpointed a genetic change that makes lung cancer more likely to spread around the body. Lead author of the paper, Monte Winslow, of the David H Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, said understanding the role of the gene may help scientists develop new drugs. The research could ultimately lead to new medicines to fight secondary tumors.
Cancer research
Cancer research is basic research into cancer in order to identify causes and develop strategies for prevention, diagnosis, treatments and cure....
center affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
(MIT) located in Cambridge
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The Institute is one of eight National Cancer Institute
National Cancer Institute
The National Cancer Institute is part of the National Institutes of Health , which is one of 11 agencies that are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The NCI coordinates the U.S...
-designated basic research centers
NCI-designated Cancer Center
NCI-designated Cancer Centers are a group of approximately 66 cancer research institutions in the United States supported by the National Cancer Institute....
in the United States.
The Institute was launched in October 2007 with a $100 million grant from David H. Koch
David H. Koch
David Hamilton Koch is an American businessman, philanthropist, political activist, and chemical engineer. He is a co-owner and an executive vice president of Koch Industries, a conglomerate that is the second-largest privately held company in the U.S...
and will replace the MIT Center for Cancer Research (CCR) when the 180000 square feet (16,722.5 m²) research facility opens in December 2010. The Institute is affiliated with 25 MIT faculty members in both the Schools of Engineering and Science.
History
In 1974, the Center for Cancer Research was founded by 1969 Nobel LaureateNobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine administered by the Nobel Foundation, is awarded once a year for outstanding discoveries in the field of life science and medicine. It is one of five Nobel Prizes established in 1895 by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, in his will...
Salvador Luria 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 Canter Institute as well as research project grants from the National Institutes of Health
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Howard Hughes Medical Institute is a United States non-profit medical research organization based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It was founded by the American businessman Howard Hughes in 1953. It is one of the largest private funding organizations for biological and medical research in the United...
, and foundation support. The CCR research groups were successful in identifying oncogene
Oncogene
An oncogene is a gene that has the potential to cause cancer. In tumor cells, they are often mutated or expressed at high levels.An oncogene is a gene found in the chromosomes of tumor cells whose activation is associated with the initial and continuing conversion of normal cells into cancer...
s, immunology of T lymphocytes, and roles of various cellular proteins. The CCR produced four Nobel Laureates: David Baltimore
David Baltimore
David Baltimore is an American biologist, university administrator, and Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine. He served as president of the California Institute of Technology from 1997 to 2006, and is currently the Robert A. Millikan Professor of Biology at Caltech...
(1975), Susumu Tonegawa
Susumu Tonegawa
Susumu Tonegawa is a Japanese scientist who won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1987 for his discovery of the genetic mechanism that produces antibody diversity. Although he won the Nobel Prize for his work in immunology, Tonegawa is a molecular biologist by training...
(1987), Phillip Sharp (1993), and H. Robert Horvitz
H. Robert Horvitz
Howard Robert Horvitz is an American biologist best known for his research on the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans.-Life:Horvitz did his undergraduate studies at MIT in 1968, where he joined Alpha Epsilon Pi...
(2002).
In 2006, President Susan Hockfield
Susan Hockfield
Susan Hockfield is the sixteenth and current president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Hockfield's appointment was publicly announced on August 26, 2004, and she formally took office December 6, 2004, succeeding Charles M. Vest. Hockfield's official inauguration celebrations took...
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
Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research
The Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research Ltd is a global non-profit medical research institute that undertakes laboratory and clinical research into cancer, conducting and sponsoring its own early-phase clinical trials to investigate its discoveries....
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 David H. Koch
David H. Koch
David Hamilton Koch is an American businessman, philanthropist, political activist, and chemical engineer. He is a co-owner and an executive vice president of Koch Industries, a conglomerate that is the second-largest privately held company in the U.S...
, the executive vice president of the oil conglomerate Koch Industries
Koch Industries
Koch Industries, Inc. , is an American private energy conglomerate based in Wichita, Kansas, with subsidiaries involved in manufacturing, trading and investments. Koch also owns Invista, Georgia-Pacific, Flint Hills Resources, Koch Pipeline, Koch Fertilizer, Koch Minerals and Matador Cattle Company...
. Koch graduated from MIT with bachelors and masters degrees in chemical engineering
Chemical engineering
Chemical engineering is the branch of engineering that deals with physical science , and life sciences with mathematics and economics, to the process of converting raw materials or chemicals into more useful or valuable forms...
and served on the university's board of directors since 1988. Koch survived a prostate cancer
Prostate cancer
Prostate cancer is a form of cancer that develops in the prostate, a gland in the male reproductive system. Most prostate cancers are slow growing; however, there are cases of aggressive prostate cancers. The cancer cells may metastasize from the prostate to other parts of the body, particularly...
diagnosis in 1992, previously donated $25 million over ten years to MIT to support cancer research, and is the namesake of the university's biology building. 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 HospitalMassachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital is a teaching hospital and biomedical research facility in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts...
's Cancer Center. The Institute will combine the existing faculty of the CCR with an equivalent number of engineering faculty to promote new 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
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
: Developing nanotechnology
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
-based cancer therapeutics, creating novel devices for cancer detection and monitoring, exploring the molecular and cellular basis of metastasis
Metastasis
Metastasis, or metastatic disease , is the spread of a disease from one organ or part to another non-adjacent organ or part. It was previously thought that only malignant tumor cells and infections have the capacity to metastasize; however, this is being reconsidered due to new research...
, advancing personalized medicine through analysis of cancer pathways and drug resistance, engineering the immune system
Immune system
An immune system is a system of biological structures and processes within an organism that protects against disease by identifying and killing pathogens and tumor cells. It detects a wide variety of agents, from viruses to parasitic worms, and needs to distinguish them from the organism's own...
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), fifteen members of the National Academy of SciencesUnited States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
, one member of the National Academy of Engineering
National Academy of Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering is a government-created non-profit institution in the United States, that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...
, six National Medal of Science
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 sciences, biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and...
laureates, and five Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Howard Hughes Medical Institute is a United States non-profit medical research organization based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It was founded by the American businessman Howard Hughes in 1953. It is one of the largest private funding organizations for biological and medical research in the United...
investigators, and one MacArthur Foundation Fellowship recipient.
The following faculty members are formally affiliated with the Koch Institute:
Building
The 180000 square feet (16,722.5 m²) research facility is located on the corner of Main Street and Ames Street near Kendall SquareKendall Square
Kendall Square is a neighborhood in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with the "square" itself at the intersection of Main Street, Broadway, Wadsworth Street, and Third Street...
in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
. The building is located opposite the Whitehead Institute
Whitehead Institute
Founded in 1982, the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research is a non-profit research and teaching institution located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA....
and Broad Institute
Broad Institute
The Broad Institute is a genomic medicine research center located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Although it is independently governed and supported as a 501 nonprofit research organization, the institute is formally affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard...
and near the biology and chemical engineering buildings on the north-eastern end of MIT's campus
Campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is located on a tract in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The campus spans approximately one mile of the north side of the Charles River basin directly opposite the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts.The campus...
. MIT broke ground on Building 76 in March 2008, a topping-off ceremony was held in February 2009, and the building is expected to open in December 2010. The building was dedicated on March 4, 2011.
The building was designed by Cambridge-based architecture firm Ellenzweig which designed several other buildings on the MIT campus. Designed to encourage interaction and collaboration, the building will employ both dedicated lab space as well as common areas, and will feature a ground-floor gallery exhibiting art and technical displays related to biomedical research. The building will include facilities for bioinformatics and computing, genomics, proteomics and flow cytometry
Flow cytometry
Flow cytometry is a technique for counting and examining microscopic particles, such as cells and chromosomes, by suspending them in a stream of fluid and passing them by an electronic detection apparatus. It allows simultaneous multiparametric analysis of the physical and/or chemical...
, large-scale cell and animal facilities for genetic engineering and testing, advanced imaging equipment and nanomaterials characterization labs.
Recent Activity
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. Lead author of the paper, Monte Winslow, of the David H Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, said understanding the role of the gene may help scientists develop new drugs. The research could ultimately lead to new medicines to fight secondary tumors.