Control of the structure and function of three-dimensional multicellular tissues depends critically on the spatial and temporal coordination of cellular physical properties, yet the organizational principles that govern these events and their disruption in disease remain poorly understood. Using a multicellular mammary cancer organoid model, we map here the spatial and temporal evolution of positions, motions and physical characteristics of…
For centuries, women have been dismissed as emotional and, thus, unreliable. The “scientific” proof? Hormones. This stereotype even extends to female rats, which have been excluded from biomedical research because their hormones supposedly make the results “messy.” But a Northeastern professor has found that these dreaded chemicals could actually cure certain mental health disorders. Now that’s something to get emotional about. In…
Gregory J. Pazour, PhD, professor of molecular medicine, is one of 16 scientists named a 2019 fellow of the American Society for Cell Biology. Election as a fellow is an honor bestowed upon ASCB members by their peers. Fellows are recognized for their meritorious efforts to advance cell biology and its applications and for their service to ASCB. Dr. Pazour…
Scientists from the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, led by Dr. Aaron Schmidt, Assistant Professor of Microbiology, have partnered with the Duke Human Vaccine Institute (DHVI) on a nation-wide, multidisciplinary program to develop a more universally protective influenza vaccine. The Collaborative Influenza Vaccine Innovation Centers (CIVICs) program, driven and supported by the National Institute of Allergy and…
Lab-grown or cultured meat could revolutionize food production, providing a greener, more sustainable, more ethical alternative to large-scale meat production. But getting lab-grown meat from the petri dish to the dinner plate requires solving several major problems, including how to make large amounts of it and how to make it feel and taste more like real meat. Now, researchers at…
Dr. Jesse Delia of the Warkentin Lab was selected as the winner of the 2019 Belamarich Award for his doctoral dissertation in Biology titled “Ecology and Evolution of Parent-Embryo Interactions in Neotropical Glassfrogs.” This award is given annually to a recent PhD candidate for their outstanding doctoral dissertation completed in the Department of Biology. While several outstanding dissertations were nominated, Jesse’s dissertation stood out based…
People with autism often experience hypersensitivity to noise and other sensory input. MIT neuroscientists have now identified two brain circuits that help tune out distracting sensory information, and they have found a way to reverse noise hypersensitivity in mice by boosting the activity of those circuits. One of the circuits the researchers identified is involved in filtering noise, while the…
Whitehead Institute Member Richard A. Young has been elected to the United States National Academy of Medicine (NAM). Along with the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and National Academy of Engineering, the NAM provides objective, evidence-based advice to the nation, under a congressional charter. Election to the NAM is considered one of the highest honors for U.S. medical practitioners, public…
Synthetic biologists have taken evolution of proteins into their own hands by changing some that occur in nature or even by synthesizing them from scratch. Such engineered proteins are used as highly efficacious drugs, components of synthetic gene circuits that sense biological signals, or in the production of high-value chemicals in ways that are more effective and sustainable than petroleum-based…
A team from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard has developed a new CRISPR genome-editing approach by combining two of the most important proteins in molecular biology — CRISPR-Cas9 and a reverse transcriptase — into a single machine. The system, called “prime editing,” is capable of directly editing human cells in a precise, efficient, and highly versatile fashion. The…
