Ludwig MIT’s May retreat was one to remember
Photos by Unmesh Kher
Graduate students of Ludwig MIT show off the cherished Ludwig Buck (center), awarded to the group that asked the most questions at the retreat.
The 2025 Annual Retreat of the Ludwig Center at MIT, led by Ludwig MIT Co-directors Robert Weinberg and Tyler Jacks, was held in May on the gorgeous grounds of MIT’s Endicott House. Ten Ludwig MIT trainees delivered 20-minute presentations on their research, with each talk followed by lively Q&As; another two dozen shared their work at a poster session following a sumptuous lunch and an opportunity, seized by many, to tour the surrounding woods and gardens. Graduate students won this year’s cherished “Ludwig Buck”, awarded by the directors and issued every year to the demographic—faculty, technicians, postdocs or graduate students—that asks the most questions. The day ended with Bob Weinberg’s closing remarks, which were, as always, memorable, though also bittersweet, as they were the last he will deliver at a Ludwig MIT retreat. After more than five decades as a renowned professor and scientist at MIT and nearly two as Director of the MIT Center, he will be closing his lab this year and shifting to emeritus status, one in which he will fortunately continue teaching. Needless to say, he will be very much missed, not only by the Ludwig community but across the world of cancer research, in which he remains a living legend.
Md Imtiaz Khalil, a postdoc in Robert Weinberg’s lab, discussed his work exploring how kinase-mediated signaling regulates phenotypic plasticity in triple-negative breast cancer.
Jacob Kassama, a graduate student in the Tyler Jacks lab at Ludwig MIT, presented his studies probing how CD4+ T cell and cancer cell interactions in early tumorigenesis influence tumor progression.