“`html
The MIT Health and Life Sciences Collaborative (MIT HEALS) is initiating the Biswas Postdoctoral Fellowship Program to propel the endeavors of exceptional early-career scholars in health and life sciences. Backed by a contribution from the Biswas Family Foundation, the initiative seeks to harness advanced research to enhance health care and enrich the lives of countless individuals.
This program will support remarkable postdocs committed to innovation in human health care via a comprehensive array of avenues, such as utilizing AI in health-focused research, creating affordable diagnostic tools, and integrating life sciences with fields like economics, business, policy, or humanities. With initial funding of $12 million, five four-year fellowships will be granted annually over the next four years, commencing in early 2026.
“A pivotal objective of MIT HEALS is to discover new methods and chances to deliver health care solutions on a large scale, and the Biswas Family Foundation aligns with our dedication to scalable innovation and extensive impact. MIT is also in the talent development sector, and the foundation’s contribution enables us to attract outstanding scholars to campus, allowing them to explore pressing issues in human health and forge significant connections across academia and industry. We eagerly anticipate the arrival of the first cohort of Biswas Fellows at MIT,” states MIT President Sally Kornbluth.
“We are profoundly honored to initiate this premier postdoctoral fellowship program,” adds Anantha P. Chandrakasan, MIT’s chief innovation and strategy officer as well as head of MIT HEALS. “We fully expect to draw top-tier candidates from around the world to spearhead innovative multidisciplinary projects in AI and health, cancer treatments, diagnostics, and more. These fellows will undergo a stringent selection process overseen by an esteemed committee, providing them the chance to collaborate with our faculty on the most promising and impactful ideas.”
Angela Koehler, faculty lead of MIT HEALS, a professor in MIT’s Department of Biological Engineering, and associate director of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, stressed that the goals of MIT HEALS closely match a stated objective of the Biswas Family Foundation: to leverage “scientific and technological advancements to transform health care and create a lasting influence on global public health.”
“Health care is a collective endeavor,” Koehler asserts. “MIT HEALS aims to forge connections among researchers with varied expertise across the Institute to address the most transformative challenges affecting human health. Members of the MIT community are well-positioned to engage in teams and make a significant impact.”
MIT HEALS also aspires to maximize its efficiency by enhancing collaborations with medical institutions and hospitals, beginning with identifying key issues that can be tackled through research and continuing through to clinical trials, Koehler mentions.
The Biswas Family Foundation has already showcased a similar approach.
“The Biswas family has a history of facilitating connections and partnerships among institutions that each contribute a part to the solution,” Koehler notes. “This may involve a dataset, an algorithm, an agent, a technology platform, or patients.”
Hope Biswas, co-founder of the Biswas Family Foundation alongside her husband, MIT alumnus Sanjit Biswas SM ’05, also underscored the synergies between the foundation and MIT.
“The Biswas Family Foundation takes pride in supporting the MIT HEALS initiative, which redefines how scientific discoveries can convert into tangible health impacts. Its emphasis on fostering interdisciplinary collaboration to devise innovative solutions for challenges in health care aligns seamlessly with our mission to advance science and technology to enhance health outcomes on a large scale,” Biswas remarks.
“As part of this commitment,” Biswas continues, “we are particularly proud to support exemplary postdoctoral scholars dedicated to high-impact interdisciplinary work in areas such as computational biology, nanoscale therapeutics, women’s health, and foundational, curiosity-driven life sciences research. We are thrilled to contribute to an effort that unites cutting-edge science and a profound commitment to translating knowledge into action.”
AI and machine-learning frameworks present a new realm of possibilities to explore diseases, biological mechanisms, therapeutics, and health care delivery utilizing vast datasets.
“AI and computational systems biology can enhance the precision of diagnostic methods, facilitate the development of tailored medicines, refine decisions regarding individualized treatment strategies, and boost operational efficiency within health care systems,” states Koehler. “Sanjit and Hope’s investment in broad initiatives in AI and computational systems biology will empower MIT researchers to explore diverse pathways to significantly impact human health.”
Innovations in health-related research are increasingly emerging at the intersection of varied fields, with Koehler providing the example of how advancements in high-throughput experimentation to create large datasets “may align well with the development of new computational or AI tools.” She adds that the four-year duration of the postdoctoral fellowship is “sufficient to allow fellows to think ambitiously and undertake projects at intersections, evolving into bilingual researchers by the conclusion of the program.”
Chandrakasan envisions the potential for the program to enable Biswas Fellows to achieve groundbreaking progress in health research.
“I’m incredibly thankful to the Biswas Family Foundation for their generous support in facilitating transformative research at MIT,” Chandrakasan expresses.
“`