tom witkowski

The Great Circle 

Need: An explanation of the phrase, “The Great Circle,” which then-MIT President Susan Hockfield began using to describe MIT’s place at the epicenter of innovation in Greater Boston.

Solution: A position paper that defined “The Great Circle,” conceptually, as well as geographically, that included specific examples, and could be used as talking points for fundraising and other Institute staff when meeting with alumni and donors.

My role: Authored position paper in collaboration with lead fundraiser.

The Great Circle

The intersections of Main, Vassar, and Ames Streets in Cambridge form an epicenter of scientific research and innovation unmatched anywhere in the world. Engineering and life sciences converge on the MIT campus in the work of more than 3,000 MIT students, faculty, and postdoctoral researchers—the focal point of a Great Circle.

Starting with the Institute’s research laboratories, the Great Circle encompasses a series of concentric circles that expand to include more than 90 biotechnology and biopharmaceutical companies within a one-mile radius, and cross the Charles River to include Boston's medical centers, such as Massachusetts General Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Children's Hospital Boston. 

MIT labs and academic departments—biology, biological engineering, chemical engineering, electrical engineering and computer science, mechanical engineering, and brain and cognitive sciences—have been the intellectual nucleus of this Great Circle. It was in the Department of Biology, for example, that Nobel Laureate Salvador Luria and his colleagues founded the Center for Cancer Research in 1974. 

Today, the circle’s inner ring comprises over one million square feet of research and office space, including:

• The MIT Center for Cancer Research, which has been home to five Nobel Prize winners and where 32 faculty and 500 researchers are working to eliminate cancer, and is one of eight National Cancer Institute-designated basic research centers in the country;

• The Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, which pioneered work on the automation and informatics strategies for DNA sequencing and contributed one-third of the human genome sequence assembled by the Human Genome Project;

• The Broad Institute, a collaboration among MIT, the Whitehead, and Harvard University and its hospitals to bring the power of genomics to medicine;

• The Ray and Maria Stata Center, home of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS), and the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy; and

• The Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research, pharmaceutical company Novartis’ 250,000- square-foot research facility housing 350 scientists studying cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and infectious disease.

MIT’s $175 million, 411,000-square-foot brain and cognitive sciences complex is the latest addition to this concentration of scientific research. The complex is the largest facility in the world dedicated to neuroscience and is home to:

• The McGovern Institute for Brain Research, initially under Nobel Laureate and Biology Professor Phillip Sharp, and now led by Robert Desimone, researching brain functions such as recognition, perception and decision-making;

• The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, under the direction of Nobel Laureate and Professor of Biology and Neuroscience Susumu Tonegawa, seeking to understand the human capacity to learn and to put its discoveries to work in realms from medicine to education; and

• The Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, focusing on the structure and functions of the human brain.

The concentration of faculty members and students, and their research, has led to the formation of numerous private and public companies that license and commercialize MIT intellectual property. 

More than 150 such companies are within the Great Circle’s inner rings. Some were founded by MIT scientists, alumni, and students. Others have moved here to build on MIT’s expertise. Whether rooted in the Institute or attracted by its work, these companies are at the forefront of drug discovery, medical device invention, and scientific advancement. They include:

• Biogen, founded in 1978 by Nobel Laureate and Biology Professor Phillip Sharp; now, as Biogen Idec, developing and selling drugs in the fields of oncology, neurology, and immunology;

• Genzyme, founded in 1981, developing drugs to treat inherited disorders, kidney disease, cancer, orthopedics, and transplant and immune disease; continues to research treatments for genetic diseases, cancer, heart disease, and immune system disorders; early contributors included ChoKyun Rha, professor in the Biomaterials Science and Engineering Lab; counts an MIT professor of chemical and biochemical engineering, Charles Cooney, among its directors;

• Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, developing treatments for autoimmune disease and cancer; co-founded in 2000 by Ulrik Nielsen, an MIT postdoctoral fellow; 

• Momenta Pharmaceuticals, founded in 2001 based on technology developed at MIT; researching drugs that will be used to treat cancer, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's Disease, inflammatory disease, and viral infection; co-founded by Ram Sasisekharan, Professor of Biological Engineering, and Ganesh Venkataraman, a former research associate in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology; includes Biomedical Engineering Prof. Robert Langer on its board of directors;

• Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, founded in 2003, also by Phillip Sharp, using breakthrough RNA interference (RNAi) to develop new drugs; and

• Pervasis Therapeutics, a medical device company, founded in 2004 by MIT professors and researchers Bob Langer, Elazer Edelman, Jay Vacante, and Helen Nugent, developing products to treat cardiovascular disease.

Reaching into Boston, the next ring of the circle includes 14 major hospitals, most with cancer treatment centers, Harvard University, and 30 more biotechnology and biopharmaceutical companies, many affiliated with MIT students, faculty, and alumni. 

Over the last decade, MIT annually has produced on average 25 startup companies and licensed about 100 technologies. As faculty members and students continue to focus their research on neuroscience and the human genome, MIT is poised to spawn a new generation of companies that will transform this research into life-saving drugs and products.

The labs and research centers of MIT, the hospitals, other institutions, and the surrounding companies—most within walking distance of each other—constitute an unparalleled density of scientific discovery. Researchers from myriad disciplines, doctors, academics, scientists, entrepreneurs, and students cross paths daily. That proximity fosters formal and informal interaction—collaboration that is just not possible in other geographically scattered research and technology regions.

Within this Great Circle, MIT is at the forefront of combating cancer and other diseases, understanding the human genome, and learning about the human brain. In each ring of this Great Circle, MIT scientists, faculty, alumni, and students make advances daily that change science and our world.