Join MIT’s Koch Institute and the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center for a symposium celebrating the collaborative successes from the program’s past 10 years and exploring new partnership opportunities for future cancer research advances. Talks by past and present Bridge Project teams will be followed by a catered networking and informational event for potential new Bridge investigators.

Priority for registration will be given to PIs; if you are a PI and unable to attend, we encourage you to send a representative from your group. Potential applicants to the 2024 Bridge Project RFA (opening this June) are strongly encouraged to attend, learn more about this important funding opportunity, and explore collaborative possibilities.

This event is being held in special recognition of the role of Art Gelb—late alumnus of MIT and Harvard, lifetime member of the MIT Corporation and trustee of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute—and the Gelb family in initiating and supporting the Bridge Project.

Featured presentations from past Bridge Project teams:

Targeting minimal residual disease in acute leukemias, a collaboration between Scott Manalis of the Koch Institute and David Weinstock (now at Merck).

Quantitative Tumor Oxygen Measurements in Cervical Cancer Patients, a collaboration between Michael Cima of the Koch Institute, Robert Cormack of Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Greg Ekchian (now of Stratagen Bio).

Developing Next-Generation Personal Neoantigen-targeting Vaccines for Treatment of Patients with Metastatic Cancer, a collaboration between Catherine Wu of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Bradley Pentelute of the Koch Institute, and Patrick Ott of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Translating AI lung cancer risk models into the clinic, a collaboration between Regina Barzilay of the Koch Institute and Lecia Sequist of Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Featured presentations from ongoing Bridge Project teams:

Exploring alveolar macrophages as vehicles for collecting tumor DNA to improve early diagnosis of non-small cell lung cancer, a collaboration between Sangeeta Bhatia of the Koch Institute, Lecia Sequist of Massachusetts General Hospital, and Viktor Adalsteinsson of the Broad Institute.

Discovery and identification of optimized second-generation human CAR T cells for solid tumors, a collaboration between Marcela Maus of Massachusetts General Hospital and Michael Birnbaum of the Koch Institute.

A rapidly clinically translatable, closed-loop drug delivery system to minimize pharmacokinetic variability and improve clinical outcomes, a collaboration of Douglas Rubinson of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute with Giovanni Traverso and Robert Langer of MIT/the Koch Institute.

The Bridge Project: KI/MIT & DF/HCC Collaborating Across Cancer Challenges