Separating crude oil into products such as gasoline, diesel, and heating oil is an energy-intensive process that accounts for about 6 percent of the world's CO2 emissions. Most of that energy goes into the heat needed to separate the components by their boiling point. In an advance that could dramatically reduce the amount of energy needed for crude oil fractionation, MIT engineers have developed a membrane that filters the components of crude oil by their molecular size. 'This is a whole new way of envisioning a separation process. Instead of boiling mixtures to purify them, why not separate components based on shape and size' The key innovation is that the filters we developed can separate very small molecules at an atomistic length scale,' says Zachary P. Smith, an associate professor of chemical engineering at MIT and the senior author of the new study. The new filtration membrane can efficiently separate heavy and light components from oil, and it is resistant to the swelling that tends to occur with other types of oil separation membranes. The membrane is a thin film that can be manufactured using a technique that is already widely used in industrial processes, potentially allowing it to be scaled up for widespread use....

The study revealed genes and cellular pathways that haven't been linked to Alzheimer's before, including one involved in DNA repair. Identifying new drug targets is critical because many of the Alzheimer's drugs that have been developed to this point haven't been as successful as hoped. Working with researchers at Harvard Medical School, the team used data from humans and fruit flies to identify cellular pathways linked to neurodegeneration. This allowed them to identify additional pathways that may be contributing to the development of Alzheimer's. 'All the evidence that we have indicates that there are many different pathways involved in the progression of Alzheimer's. It is multifactorial, and that may be why it's been so hard to develop effective drugs,' says Ernest Fraenkel, the Grover M. Hermann Professor in Health Sciences and Technology in MIT's Department of Biological Engineering and the senior author of the study. 'We will need some kind of combination of treatments that hit different parts of this disease.'...

Measuring the density of a cell can reveal a great deal about the cell's state. As cells proliferate, differentiate, or undergo cell death, they may gain or lose water and other molecules, which is revealed by changes in density. Tracking these tiny changes in cells' physical state is difficult to do at a large scale, especially with single-cell resolution, but a team of MIT researchers has now found a way to measure cell density quickly and accurately ' measuring up to 30,000 cells in a single hour. The researchers also showed that density changes could be used to make valuable predictions, including whether immune cells such as T cells have become activated to kill tumors, or whether tumor cells are susceptible to a specific drug. 'These predictions are all based on looking at very small changes in the physical properties of cells, which can tell you how they're going to respond,' says Scott Manalis, the David H. Koch Professor of Engineering in the departments of Biological Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, and a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research....

'MIT Sloan was my first and only choice,' says MIT graduate student David Brown. After receiving his BS in chemical engineering at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Brown spent eight years as a helicopter pilot in the U.S. Army, serving as a platoon leader and troop commander. Now in the final year of his MBA, Brown has co-founded a climate tech company ' Helix Carbon ' with Ariel Furst, an MIT assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, and Evan Haas MBA '24, SM '24. Their goal: erase the carbon footprint of tough-to-decarbonize industries like ironmaking, polyurethanes, and olefins by generating competitively-priced, carbon-neutral fuels directly from waste carbon dioxide (CO2). It's an ambitious project; they're looking to scale the company large enough to have a gigaton per year impact on CO2 emissions. They have lab space off campus, and after graduation, Brown will be taking a full-time job as chief operating officer. 'What I loved about the Army was that I felt every day that the work I was doing was important or impactful in some way. I wanted that to continue, and felt the best way to have the greatest possible positive impact was to use my operational skills learned from the military to help close the gap between the lab and impact in the market.'...