MIT to launch Health and Life Sciences Collaborative
To address some of society’s most pressing health challenges, MIT President Sally Kornbluth is launching the MIT Health and Life Sciences Collaborative, a new effort aimed at harnessing the collective power of researchers from fields such as engineering, science, AI, economics, business, policy, design, and the humanities to develop high-impact health solutions. By catalyzing collaborations in fields like immunology, neuroscience, AI, sustainability and healthcare – and building new bridges with Boston’s hospitals and with industry leaders in biotech and pharma – the MIT Health and Life Sciences Collaborative aims to spur discoveries and health solutions with broad, lasting, real-world impact.
On Wednesday, December 4, journalists are invited to attend the launch event for the new MIT Health and Life Sciences Collaborative, which will feature opening remarks by President Kornbluth and a keynote address by Institute Professor Emeritus and Nobel laureate Phillip Sharp.
Faculty will host breakout sessions on cross-disciplinary life science research in the areas of neuroscience, healthcare, immunology and the biosphere, to be followed by a showcase of student research. Anantha Chandrakasan, MIT’s chief innovation and strategy officer and dean of the MIT School of Engineering, will host a CEO-level panel discussion on the future of university-industry-hospital collaborations with:
- Noubar Afeyan, founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering and co-founder and chairman of Moderna;
- Reshma Kewalramani, president and CEO of Vertex;
- Anne Klibanski, president and CEO of Mass General Brigham;
- Robert Langer, Institute professor at MIT; and
- Christopher Viehbacher, president and CEO of Biogen.
More information on the Health and Life Sciences Collaborative can be found here and the full agenda for the day’s events can be found here.
Latest MIT Latest News
- New method efficiently safeguards sensitive AI training dataThe approach maintains an AI model’s accuracy while ensuring attackers can’t extract secret information.
- Building for Ukraine: A hackathon with a missionNo venture capital, no competition — just real-world problems in urgent need of solutions.
- MIT students advance solutions for water and food with the help of J-WAFSJ-WAFS marks 10 years of supporting student engagement through grants, fellowships, events, mentorship, and funding for clubs.
- Four from MIT awarded 2025 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New AmericansFellowship honors contributions of immigrants to American society by awarding $90,000 in funding for graduate studies.
- Hopping gives this tiny robot a leg upMIT engineers developed an insect-sized jumping robot that can traverse challenging terrains and carry heavy payloads.
- Could LLMs help design our next medicines and materials?A new method lets users ask, in plain language, for a new molecule with certain properties, and receive a detailed description of how to synthesize it.
