MIT's undergraduate engineering program remained the best in the nation this year, according to U.S. News & World Report's annual rankings guide released today.
MIT has held the top spot in the magazine's overall undergraduate engineering rankings for the last six years. Specialized disciplines within MIT engineering that U.S. News also ranked as the nation's best this year include the departments of aeronautics and astronautics; chemical engineering; electrical engineering and computer science; and mechanical engineering.
The MIT Sloan School of Management's undergraduate business program ranked overall as the nation's second best, according to the report. MIT's undergraduate business programs in production and operations management and in quantitative analysis also took top honors this year, and both programs have held the top places for at least six years.MIT continued to rate as one of the best universities in the nation in the U.S. News survey. The magazine listed MIT as the seventh-best university in America. Last year, the Institute was tied for fourth with two other schools.
The U.S. News ranking formula gives greatest weight to the opinions of those in a position to judge a school's undergraduate academic excellence. The peer assessment survey allows presidents, provosts, and deans of admissions to account for intangibles such as faculty dedication to teaching.Ranked by its peer universities in this category, MIT shared top and equal standing with Princeton, Harvard and Stanford.
The Institute also remained one of the most selective in the country. Gauging by its low acceptance rate, MIT was tied with Princeton for third place, behind Harvard and Yale.
MIT ranked fifth among national universities in the "Best Value" category because two-thirds of its students received need-based financial aid in 2006. This ranking relates a school's academic quality to the net cost of attendance for a student who receives the average level of need-based financial aid.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
MIT invents "lab on a chip" to automate gene studies
Genetic studies on whole animals can now be done dramatically faster using a new microchip developed by engineers at MIT.
The new "lab on a chip" can automatically treat, sort and image small animals like the 1-millimeter C. elegans worm, accelerating research and eliminating human error, said Mehmet Yanik, MIT assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science.
Yanik and his colleagues described their device in the advance online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of Aug. 20. "Lab on a chip" technologies are being developed to sort and image individual cells, but this is the first device that can be used to study whole animals.
C. elegans is often used in studies designed to identify which genes control which phenotypes, or traits. Researchers traditionally do this by treating them with a mutagen, or by using RNA interference, in which expression of a certain gene is blocked with a small strand of RNA. Such studies normally take months or years to complete. The new chip, which sorts and images worms in milliseconds, dramatically speeds up that process.
"Normally you would treat the animals with the chemicals, look at them under the microscope, one at a time, and then transfer them," Yanik said. "With this chip, we can completely automate that process."
The tiny worms are flowed inside the chip, immobilized by suction and imaged with a high resolution microscope. Once the phenotype is identified, the animals are routed to the appropriate section of the chip for further screening.
The worms can be treated with mutagen, RNAi or drugs before they enter the chip, or they can be treated directly on the chip, using a new, efficient delivery system that loads chemicals from the wells of a microplate into the chip.
"Our technique allows you to transfer the animals into the chip and treat each one with a different gene silencer or a different drug," Yanik said.
Yanik and his colleagues plan to use the chips to continue their research on neural degeneration and regeneration in C. elegans. Yanik and his collaborators had previously demonstrated a high precision femtosecond laser technology to cut axons in living animals and then observe which genes are involved in axon regeneration.
The lead author of the paper is Chris Rohde, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science (EECS). Other authors of the paper are Matthew Angel, a graduate student in EECS, Fei Zeng, a postdoctoral fellow in the Research Laboratory of Electronics, and Ricardo Gonzalez-Rubio, a graduate student in biological engineering.
The research was funded by MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics and by the Canadian National Science and Engineering Research Council and the Paul and Daisy Soros Foundation.
The new "lab on a chip" can automatically treat, sort and image small animals like the 1-millimeter C. elegans worm, accelerating research and eliminating human error, said Mehmet Yanik, MIT assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science.
Yanik and his colleagues described their device in the advance online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of Aug. 20. "Lab on a chip" technologies are being developed to sort and image individual cells, but this is the first device that can be used to study whole animals.
C. elegans is often used in studies designed to identify which genes control which phenotypes, or traits. Researchers traditionally do this by treating them with a mutagen, or by using RNA interference, in which expression of a certain gene is blocked with a small strand of RNA. Such studies normally take months or years to complete. The new chip, which sorts and images worms in milliseconds, dramatically speeds up that process.
"Normally you would treat the animals with the chemicals, look at them under the microscope, one at a time, and then transfer them," Yanik said. "With this chip, we can completely automate that process."
The tiny worms are flowed inside the chip, immobilized by suction and imaged with a high resolution microscope. Once the phenotype is identified, the animals are routed to the appropriate section of the chip for further screening.
The worms can be treated with mutagen, RNAi or drugs before they enter the chip, or they can be treated directly on the chip, using a new, efficient delivery system that loads chemicals from the wells of a microplate into the chip.
"Our technique allows you to transfer the animals into the chip and treat each one with a different gene silencer or a different drug," Yanik said.
Yanik and his colleagues plan to use the chips to continue their research on neural degeneration and regeneration in C. elegans. Yanik and his collaborators had previously demonstrated a high precision femtosecond laser technology to cut axons in living animals and then observe which genes are involved in axon regeneration.
The lead author of the paper is Chris Rohde, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science (EECS). Other authors of the paper are Matthew Angel, a graduate student in EECS, Fei Zeng, a postdoctoral fellow in the Research Laboratory of Electronics, and Ricardo Gonzalez-Rubio, a graduate student in biological engineering.
The research was funded by MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics and by the Canadian National Science and Engineering Research Council and the Paul and Daisy Soros Foundation.
MIT invents "lab on a chip" to automate gene studies
Genetic studies on whole animals can now be done dramatically faster using a new microchip developed by engineers at MIT.
The new "lab on a chip" can automatically treat, sort and image small animals like the 1-millimeter C. elegans worm, accelerating research and eliminating human error, said Mehmet Yanik, MIT assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science.
Yanik and his colleagues described their device in the advance online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of Aug. 20. "Lab on a chip" technologies are being developed to sort and image individual cells, but this is the first device that can be used to study whole animals.
C. elegans is often used in studies designed to identify which genes control which phenotypes, or traits. Researchers traditionally do this by treating them with a mutagen, or by using RNA interference, in which expression of a certain gene is blocked with a small strand of RNA. Such studies normally take months or years to complete. The new chip, which sorts and images worms in milliseconds, dramatically speeds up that process.
"Normally you would treat the animals with the chemicals, look at them under the microscope, one at a time, and then transfer them," Yanik said. "With this chip, we can completely automate that process."
The tiny worms are flowed inside the chip, immobilized by suction and imaged with a high resolution microscope. Once the phenotype is identified, the animals are routed to the appropriate section of the chip for further screening.
The worms can be treated with mutagen, RNAi or drugs before they enter the chip, or they can be treated directly on the chip, using a new, efficient delivery system that loads chemicals from the wells of a microplate into the chip.
"Our technique allows you to transfer the animals into the chip and treat each one with a different gene silencer or a different drug," Yanik said.
Yanik and his colleagues plan to use the chips to continue their research on neural degeneration and regeneration in C. elegans. Yanik and his collaborators had previously demonstrated a high precision femtosecond laser technology to cut axons in living animals and then observe which genes are involved in axon regeneration.
The lead author of the paper is Chris Rohde, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science (EECS). Other authors of the paper are Matthew Angel, a graduate student in EECS, Fei Zeng, a postdoctoral fellow in the Research Laboratory of Electronics, and Ricardo Gonzalez-Rubio, a graduate student in biological engineering.
The research was funded by MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics and by the Canadian National Science and Engineering Research Council and the Paul and Daisy Soros Foundation.
The new "lab on a chip" can automatically treat, sort and image small animals like the 1-millimeter C. elegans worm, accelerating research and eliminating human error, said Mehmet Yanik, MIT assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science.
Yanik and his colleagues described their device in the advance online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of Aug. 20. "Lab on a chip" technologies are being developed to sort and image individual cells, but this is the first device that can be used to study whole animals.
C. elegans is often used in studies designed to identify which genes control which phenotypes, or traits. Researchers traditionally do this by treating them with a mutagen, or by using RNA interference, in which expression of a certain gene is blocked with a small strand of RNA. Such studies normally take months or years to complete. The new chip, which sorts and images worms in milliseconds, dramatically speeds up that process.
"Normally you would treat the animals with the chemicals, look at them under the microscope, one at a time, and then transfer them," Yanik said. "With this chip, we can completely automate that process."
The tiny worms are flowed inside the chip, immobilized by suction and imaged with a high resolution microscope. Once the phenotype is identified, the animals are routed to the appropriate section of the chip for further screening.
The worms can be treated with mutagen, RNAi or drugs before they enter the chip, or they can be treated directly on the chip, using a new, efficient delivery system that loads chemicals from the wells of a microplate into the chip.
"Our technique allows you to transfer the animals into the chip and treat each one with a different gene silencer or a different drug," Yanik said.
Yanik and his colleagues plan to use the chips to continue their research on neural degeneration and regeneration in C. elegans. Yanik and his collaborators had previously demonstrated a high precision femtosecond laser technology to cut axons in living animals and then observe which genes are involved in axon regeneration.
The lead author of the paper is Chris Rohde, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science (EECS). Other authors of the paper are Matthew Angel, a graduate student in EECS, Fei Zeng, a postdoctoral fellow in the Research Laboratory of Electronics, and Ricardo Gonzalez-Rubio, a graduate student in biological engineering.
The research was funded by MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics and by the Canadian National Science and Engineering Research Council and the Paul and Daisy Soros Foundation.
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