MIT’s Koch Institute wins STAT Madness with technology to see tiny ovarian tumors

Carbon nanotubes rule.

In this year’s STAT Madness, a bracket-style competition to honor the best in recent biomedical research, each finalist exploited carbon nanotubes to tackle one of the two leading causes of death in the U.S.: heart disease and cancer. 

One finalist, a team from MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, engineered a fluorescing carbon nanotubule — an “amazing” material — to better see the multitude of tiny ovarian cancer tumors deep in the body and unseen by a surgeon’s eyes. The other finalist, from the Texas Heart Institute and Rice University, created fibers from “magical” carbon nanotubes to bridge over scarred heart tissue following a heart attack to prevent deadly rhythm disturbances. 

After five weeks and a record-setting 699,315 votes, we have a champion: the Koch