Ozempic, the internet, GPS: Here are 5 things New England researchers helped develop with federal funding

Boston Globe

20 hours ago

Here are some of the most impactful, federally-funded scientific breakthroughs that have come out of New England.
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Weight loss drugs
Often referred to by the well-known brand names
In the 1980s, Joel Habener and Svetlana Mojsov, both at Massachusetts General Hospital at the time, were among the first to
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'When they were discovering these things, I'm sure they didn't realize that if we fast forwarded 45 to 50 years, these would be the most talked about [medications],' said Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, obesity specialist and associate professor of medicine and pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.
The US Food and Drug Administration
'What happened here in the '70s and '80s is translating into what we're seeing in 2025,' Stanford said. 'They were developed within the academic setting with
The internet
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology played a significant role in the creation of the internet through a project called
John Guttag, a professor of computer science and electrical engineering at MIT, emphasized that while the internet itself was not invented in a single place, 'MIT's fingerprints were all over it.'
'A lot of it was also done by MIT graduates in other places,' he said. 'There were a lot of things that didn't happen at MIT but were clearly influenced by people from MIT.'
ARPAnet, which stands for Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, was the direct precursor to and is the basis of today's internet, said Guttag.
A computer scientist affiliated with MIT and later Harvard, J.C.R. Licklider, was key in the internet's development. In 1960, he authored a paper outlining his vision of using computer networks for communication, laying the groundwork for ARPAnet, which was first used in 1969.
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'The Defense Department, immensely wisely, picked a few targets and funded them to do something pretty dramatic over a long period of time,' Guttag said.
Pacemakers and defibrillators
Defibrillators, medical devices that deliver an electric shock to the heart to restore a normal heart rhythm, are near universally found in malls, offices, and schools these days, saving countless lives.
Between 1950 and 1960, Dr. Paul Zoll, a cardiologist at Beth Israel Hospital and professor at Harvard Medical School,
Cohen said the development of the external defibrillator was a 'pioneering' discovery 'to help humanity.'
'That's the whole purpose of medical investigation, medical research — it's always ongoing and improving," Cohen said.
Black hole imaging
In New England, a researcher built one of the algorithms to piece together the first image of a black hole.
That image was
The
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In 2022, a team led by scientists at the
These images are helping scientists discover crucial details about astrophysics, including the ability to test theories about how gas behaves around black holes.
'Black holes are natural laboratories where we can test Einstein's theory of gravity in ways we can't anywhere else in the cosmos,' said Doelman. 'We can see black holes for the first time in ways we would have not thought possible even a decade ago.'
Navigation systems
During World War II, MIT researchers helped develop the first widely-used electronic navigation system, known as
'It was a very important moment in both MIT's history and the history of federal funding of science and technology,' said David Mindell, professor of aeronautics and astronautics and the history of engineering and manufacturing at MIT. He said the system played a
Many researchers who worked on the project went on to become key to GPS development, Mindell said.
'Federal funding for these ecosystems has been enormously important over a long time period,' he said, adding that GPS alone probably 'generated more economic value' over a 40-year period than the entire budgets of the government agencies that helped launch the navigational system.
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Emily Spatz can be reached at