The Faculty of Engineering has chosen 13 new Takeda Fellows for the 2023-24 tutorial 12 months. With assist from Takeda, the graduate college students will conduct pathbreaking analysis starting from distant well being monitoring for digital medical trials to ingestible units for at-home, long-term diagnostics.
Now in its fourth 12 months, the MIT-Takeda Program, a collaboration between MIT’s Faculty of Engineering and Takeda, fuels the event and software of synthetic intelligence capabilities to profit human well being and drug growth. A part of the Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Studying in Well being, this system coalesces disparate disciplines, merges idea and sensible implementation, combines algorithm and {hardware} improvements, and creates multidimensional collaborations between academia and business.
The 2023-24 Takeda Fellows are:
Adam Gierlach
Adam Gierlach is a PhD candidate within the Division of Electrical Engineering and Laptop Science. Gierlach’s work combines progressive biotechnology with machine studying to create ingestible units for superior diagnostics and supply of therapeutics. In his earlier work, Gierlach developed a non-invasive, ingestible machine for long-term gastric recordings in free-moving sufferers. With the assist of a Takeda Fellowship, he’ll construct on this pathbreaking work by creating good, energy-efficient, ingestible units powered by application-specific built-in circuits for at-home, long-term diagnostics. These revolutionary units — able to figuring out, characterizing, and even correcting gastrointestinal ailments — characterize the forefront of biotechnology. Gierlach’s progressive contributions will assist to advance basic analysis on the enteric nervous system and assist develop a greater understanding of gut-brain axis dysfunctions in Parkinson’s illness, autism spectrum dysfunction, and different prevalent problems and circumstances.
Vivek Gopalakrishnan
Vivek Gopalakrishnan is a PhD candidate within the Harvard-MIT Program in Well being Sciences and Expertise. Gopalakrishnan’s objective is to develop biomedical machine-learning strategies to enhance the examine and remedy of human illness. Particularly, he employs computational modeling to advance new approaches for minimally invasive, image-guided neurosurgery, providing a secure different to open mind and spinal procedures. With the assist of a Takeda Fellowship, Gopalakrishnan will develop real-time pc imaginative and prescient algorithms that ship high-quality, 3D intraoperative picture steerage by extracting and fusing data from multimodal neuroimaging knowledge. These algorithms might permit surgeons to reconstruct 3D neurovasculature from X-ray angiography, thereby enhancing the precision of machine deployment and enabling extra correct localization of wholesome versus pathologic anatomy.
Hao He
Hao He’s a PhD candidate within the Division of Electrical Engineering and Laptop Science. His analysis pursuits lie on the intersection of generative AI, machine studying, and their functions in drugs and human well being, with a specific emphasis on passive, steady, distant well being monitoring to assist digital medical trials and health-care administration. Extra particularly, He goals to develop reliable AI fashions that promote equitable entry and ship truthful efficiency unbiased of race, gender, and age. In his previous work, He has developed monitoring techniques utilized in medical research of Parkinson’s illness, Alzheimer’s illness, and epilepsy. Supported by a Takeda Fellowship, He’ll develop a novel expertise for the passive monitoring of sleep phases (utilizing radio signaling) that seeks to deal with current gaps in efficiency throughout completely different demographic teams. His mission will sort out the issue of imbalance in out there datasets and account for intrinsic variations throughout subpopulations, utilizing generative AI and multi-modality/multi-domain studying, with the objective of studying strong options which can be invariant to completely different subpopulations. He’s work holds nice promise for delivering superior, equitable health-care companies to all folks and will considerably influence well being care and AI.
Chengyi Lengthy
Chengyi Lengthy is a PhD candidate within the Division of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Lengthy’s interdisciplinary analysis integrates the methodology of physics, arithmetic, and pc science to analyze questions in ecology. Particularly, Lengthy is creating a sequence of doubtless groundbreaking methods to elucidate and predict the temporal dynamics of ecological techniques, together with human microbiota, that are important topics in well being and medical analysis. His present work, supported by a Takeda Fellowship, is targeted on creating a conceptual, mathematical, and sensible framework to grasp the interaction between exterior perturbations and inner neighborhood dynamics in microbial techniques, which can function a key step towards discovering bio options to well being administration. A broader perspective of his analysis is to develop AI-assisted platforms to anticipate the altering conduct of microbial techniques, which can assist to distinguish between wholesome and unhealthy hosts and design probiotics for the prevention and mitigation of pathogen infections. By creating novel strategies to deal with these points, Lengthy’s analysis has the potential to supply highly effective contributions to drugs and international well being.
Omar Mohd
Omar Mohd is a PhD candidate within the Division of Electrical Engineering and Laptop Science. Mohd’s analysis is targeted on creating new applied sciences for the spatial profiling of microRNAs, with probably essential functions in most cancers analysis. By way of progressive combos of micro-technologies and AI-enabled picture evaluation to measure the spatial variations of microRNAs inside tissue samples, Mohd hopes to achieve new insights into drug resistance in most cancers. This work, supported by a Takeda Fellowship, falls throughout the rising subject of spatial transcriptomics, which seeks to grasp most cancers and different ailments by analyzing the relative areas of cells and their contents inside tissues. The last word objective of Mohd’s present mission is to search out multidimensional patterns in tissues which will have prognostic worth for most cancers sufferers. One useful part of his work is an open-source AI program developed with collaborators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Heart and Harvard Medical Faculty to auto-detect most cancers epithelial cells from different cell sorts in a tissue pattern and to correlate their abundance with the spatial variations of microRNAs. By way of his analysis, Mohd is making progressive contributions on the interface of microsystem expertise, AI-based picture evaluation, and most cancers remedy, which might considerably influence drugs and human well being.
Sanghyun Park
Sanghyun Park is a PhD candidate within the Division of Mechanical Engineering. Park specializes within the integration of AI and biomedical engineering to deal with complicated challenges in human well being. Drawing on his experience in polymer physics, drug supply, and rheology, his analysis focuses on the pioneering subject of in-situ forming implants (ISFIs) for drug supply. Supported by a Takeda Fellowship, Park is at present creating an injectable formulation designed for long-term drug supply. The first objective of his analysis is to unravel the compaction mechanism of drug particles in ISFI formulations by way of complete modeling and in-vitro characterization research using superior AI instruments. He goals to achieve a radical understanding of this distinctive compaction mechanism and apply it to drug microcrystals to attain properties optimum for long-term drug supply. Past these basic research, Park’s analysis additionally focuses on translating this information into sensible functions in a medical setting by way of animal research particularly geared toward extending drug launch period and bettering mechanical properties. The progressive use of AI in creating superior drug supply techniques, coupled with Park’s useful insights into the compaction mechanism, might contribute to bettering long-term drug supply. This work has the potential to pave the way in which for efficient administration of continual ailments, benefiting sufferers, clinicians, and the pharmaceutical business.
Huaiyao Peng
Huaiyao Peng is a PhD candidate within the Division of Organic Engineering. Peng’s analysis pursuits are centered on engineered tissue, microfabrication platforms, most cancers metastasis, and the tumor microenvironment. Particularly, she is advancing novel AI methods for the event of pre-cancer organoid fashions of high-grade serous ovarian most cancers (HGSOC), an particularly deadly and difficult-to-treat most cancers, with the objective of gaining new insights into development and efficient therapies. Peng’s mission, supported by a Takeda Fellowship, shall be one of many first to make use of cells from serous tubal intraepithelial carcinoma lesions discovered within the fallopian tubes of many HGSOC sufferers. By analyzing the mobile and molecular adjustments that happen in response to remedy with small molecule inhibitors, she hopes to determine potential biomarkers and promising therapeutic targets for HGSOC, together with personalised remedy choices for HGSOC sufferers, in the end bettering their medical outcomes. Peng’s work has the potential to result in essential advances in most cancers remedy and spur progressive new functions of AI in well being care.
Priyanka Raghavan
Priyanka Raghavan is a PhD candidate within the Division of Chemical Engineering. Raghavan’s analysis pursuits lie on the frontier of predictive chemistry, integrating computational and experimental approaches to construct highly effective new predictive instruments for societally essential functions, together with drug discovery. Particularly, Raghavan is creating novel fashions to foretell small-molecule substrate reactivity and compatibility in regimes the place little knowledge is out there (probably the most life like regimes). A Takeda Fellowship will allow Raghavan to push the boundaries of her analysis, making progressive use of low-data and multi-task machine studying approaches, artificial chemistry, and robotic laboratory automation, with the objective of making an autonomous, closed-loop system for the invention of high-yielding natural small molecules within the context of underexplored reactions. Raghavan’s work goals to determine new, versatile reactions to broaden a chemist’s artificial toolbox with novel scaffolds and substrates that would kind the premise of important medicine. Her work has the potential for far-reaching impacts in early-stage, small-molecule discovery and will assist make the prolonged drug-discovery course of considerably quicker and cheaper.
Zhiye Music
Zhiye “Zoey” Music is a PhD candidate within the Division of Electrical Engineering and Laptop Science. Music’s analysis integrates cutting-edge approaches in machine studying (ML) and {hardware} optimization to create next-generation, wearable medical units. Particularly, Music is creating novel approaches for the energy-efficient implementation of ML computation in low-power medical units, together with a wearable ultrasound “patch” that captures and processes pictures for real-time decision-making capabilities. Her current work, performed in collaboration with clinicians, has centered on bladder quantity monitoring; different potential functions embody blood strain monitoring, muscle prognosis, and neuromodulation. With the assist of a Takeda Fellowship, Music will construct on that promising work and pursue key enhancements to current wearable machine applied sciences, together with creating low-compute and low-memory ML algorithms and low-power chips to allow ML on good wearable units. The applied sciences rising from Music’s analysis might provide thrilling new capabilities in well being care, enabling highly effective and cost-effective point-of-care diagnostics and increasing particular person entry to autonomous and steady medical monitoring.
Peiqi Wang
Peiqi Wang is a PhD candidate within the Division of Electrical Engineering and Laptop Science. Wang’s analysis goals to develop machine studying strategies for studying and interpretation from medical pictures and related medical knowledge to assist medical decision-making. He’s creating a multimodal illustration studying strategy that aligns data captured in massive quantities of medical picture and textual content knowledge to switch this information to new duties and functions. Supported by a Takeda Fellowship, Wang will advance this promising line of labor to construct strong instruments that interpret pictures, be taught from sparse human suggestions, and motive like medical doctors, with probably main advantages to essential stakeholders in well being care.
Oscar Wu
Haoyang “Oscar” Wu is a PhD candidate within the Division of Chemical Engineering. Wu’s analysis integrates quantum chemistry and deep studying strategies to speed up the method of small-molecule screening within the growth of latest medicine. By figuring out and automating dependable strategies for locating transition state geometries and calculating barrier heights for brand spanking new reactions, Wu’s work might make it doable to conduct the high-throughput ab initio calculations of response charges wanted to display the reactivity of enormous numbers of energetic pharmaceutical substances (APIs). A Takeda Fellowship will assist his present mission to: (1) develop open-source software program for high-throughput quantum chemistry calculations, specializing in the reactivity of drug-like molecules, and (2) develop deep studying fashions that may quantitatively predict the oxidative stability of APIs. The instruments and insights ensuing from Wu’s analysis might assist to rework and speed up the drug-discovery course of, providing important advantages to the pharmaceutical and medical fields and to sufferers.
Soojung Yang
Soojung Yang is a PhD candidate within the Division of Supplies Science and Engineering. Yang’s analysis applies cutting-edge strategies in geometric deep studying and generative modeling, together with atomistic simulations, to raised perceive and mannequin protein dynamics. Particularly, Yang is creating novel instruments in generative AI to discover protein conformational landscapes that supply larger pace and element than physics-based simulations at a considerably decrease value. With the assist of a Takeda Fellowship, she’s going to construct upon her profitable work on the reverse transformation of coarse-grained proteins to the all-atom decision, aiming to construct machine-learning fashions that bridge a number of measurement scales of protein conformation range (all-atom, residue-level, and domain-level). Yang’s analysis holds the potential to offer a strong and broadly relevant new device for researchers who search to grasp the complicated protein capabilities at work in human ailments and to design medicine to deal with and remedy these ailments.
Yuzhe Yang
Yuzhe Yang is a PhD candidate within the Division of Electrical Engineering and Laptop Science. Yang’s analysis pursuits lie on the intersection of machine studying and well being care. In his previous and present work, Yang has developed and utilized progressive machine-learning fashions that deal with key challenges in illness prognosis and monitoring. His many notable achievements embody the creation of one of many first machine learning-based options utilizing nocturnal respiration alerts to detect Parkinson’s illness (PD), estimate illness severity, and monitor PD development. With the assist of a Takeda Fellowship, Yang will increase this promising work to develop an AI-based prognosis mannequin for Alzheimer’s illness (AD) utilizing sleep-breathing knowledge that’s considerably extra dependable, versatile, and economical than present diagnostic instruments. This passive, in-home, contactless monitoring system — resembling a easy dwelling Wi-Fi router — will even allow distant illness evaluation and steady development monitoring. Yang’s groundbreaking work has the potential to advance the prognosis and remedy of prevalent ailments like PD and AD, and it affords thrilling prospects for addressing many well being challenges with dependable, inexpensive machine-learning instruments.