DHIVE IBD Track

The MIT DHIVE Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Track, offered in partnership with the MIT Center for Microbiome Informatics and Therapeutics (CMIT), is a new and exciting internship opportunity focused on developing student-led entrepreneurial solutions that provide personalized preventative medicine in chronic diseases.

The CMIT IBDTracker clinical study aims to predict flare ups in patients suffering from Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), empowering patients and transforming the way we approach maintenance of chronic disease.

Participants will learn from IBD clinical care and microbiome-based healthcare innovation experts about key needs and challenges related to IBD, engage in brainstorming and ideation activities and learn how to transform ideas into technical and marketing plans. This track is open to both undergraduate and graduate students.

Applications are now closed, but fill out our interest form for future opportunities.

Dive into Healthcare Innovation and Venture Exploration (DHIVE)

View Other DHIVE Summer 2022 Tracks:
Long Covid & Lyme Disease
Down Syndrome & Similar Disabilities

Applications will be open soon.

• 3-week program Jan 9 - Jan 28

• Participation options:

  • Paid Internship: part-time or full-time internships for MIT undergraduate and graduate students

  • Participants:

    • MIT graduate students who are unable to commit 20 hours per week as a paid intern are welcome to apply and participate

    • Non-MIT students are welcome to apply and participate

• Educational talks focused on understanding IBD and challenges to clinical care as well as insight into the ongoing CMIT IBDTracker clinical trial and the bottlenecks for scaling

• Entrepreneurship-focused workshops and mentorship

• Potential for continued support in spring MIT Sandbox

• Initial startup funds available from CMIT for compelling business plans

Program Hourly Rate:$15/hour

Want to connect and know more about the program?

Join our healthcare Slack channel in the MIT Sandbox Community workspace or email dhive-ops@mit.edu

Making new drugs to treat disease is a difficult process that takes many years and is rarely successful. But what if patients could make better use of the drugs we already have? Could knowing when symptoms are going to flare up in advance give patients the edge they need to minimize the impacts of disease, or prevent episodes altogether?

That’s the premise of a new study by CMIT called IBDTracker which aims to predict flare ups in patients suffering from Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). A N=100 patient trial is currently underway that will collect the pilot data that will enable advance prediction of IBD flare ups, empowering patients and transforming the way we approach maintenance of chronic disease. 

Seeking Innovative Entrepreneurial Solutions to Predict IBD Flare Ups

The CMIT is seeking teams interested in taking the knowledge learned from the IBDTracker study and expand it to 1000s of participants nationally. The current implementation of IBDTracker includes a mobile app, microbiome sequencing, biomarker testing, and a wearable device. Any or all of these can be part of the next phase of the trial.

This nation-wide scale up can be implemented in the context of a commercial or non-profit entity and should include technical and business solutions to achieve the following goals:

• reducing materials & service costs (microbiome sequencing, biomarker quantitation)

• reducing patient burden (ease-of-use for sample collection and/or in-home diagnostic devices)

• improving patient experience (UI/UX, real-time data return)

Teams will work to produce a technical plan, as well as a business and marketing plan for providing predictive technology for IBD patient care. Initial startup funds are available from CMIT for compelling business plans and participants will gain access to CMIT's network of world-renowned experts in IBD clinical care and microbiome-based healthcare innovation.

• Paid Internship:

  • Degree-seeking MIT graduate and undergraduate students from any department who can commit at least 20 hours/week.

  • MIT graduate students on RAship who can devote 10 hours per week.

  • Limited funding is available for non-MIT undergraduate and graduate students.

• Unpaid Internship:

  • Anyone interested in biomedical innovation who is able to devote at least 10 hours per week. 

  • We welcome post-docs, special students, exchange students, non-MIT students, and non-students