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2001 News Stories
December 18, 2001
Scientists Establish Link Between DNA Replication and Gene Expression Faced with an infection, the human body’s first line of defense is to produce millions of antibodies to neutralize the infection. Orchestrating this defense is the human immune cell called the B cell, which has the amazing ability to produce an army of antibodies, each a replica of the other and each tailor made for a specific infectious agent. In fact, maternal and paternal copies of genes can produce antibodies that are not exact replicas, so the B cell must silence one of them to avoid disorders of the immune system. But how a B cell pulls off this stunt has been a mystery.
December 12, 2001
Eric Lander Wins Novartis/Drew Award Genome Center Director Eric Lander was recently awarded the Novartis/ Drew Award in Biomedical Research. Lander accepted the award on November 27 at a scientific symposium hosted by Drew University in New Jersey.
December 12, 2001
Gerry Fink Awarded George W. Beadle Medal Whitehead Member Gerry Fink was recently awarded the 2001 George W. Beadle Medal by the Genetics Society of America. The Beadle award is named in honor of acclaimed geneticist and Nobel Laureate George Wells Beadle.
November 16, 2001
Scientists Sequence Male Infertility Region on Y Chromosome In a tour de force in genomics, researchers led by the Whitehead Institute and the Washington University School of Medicine in St.Louis, Missouri, have sequenced and analyzed one of the most complicated terrains of the human genome. This region on the male sex (Y) chromosome, called AZFc, is important for sperm production and, when lost, causes male infertility.
October 26, 2001
Scientists Find New Class of Genes Implicated in Protein Regulation David Bartel’s lab at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research reported the exciting discovery of a new class of small genes last month. The genes don’t code for proteins, but instead code for tiny RNAs called "microRNAs" —only 20 to 24 bases long—thought to be important in regulating protein levels. The results were published in the October 26 issue of Science along with two other papers with similar findings, one from Thomas Tuschl’s lab at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry and the other from Victor Ambros’s lab at Dartmouth Medical School.
October 26, 2001
Genoscope and Whitehead Announce the Draft Sequence of the Tetraodon Puffer Fish Genome Chalking up another victory for comparative genomics, researchers from Genoscope (The French National Sequencing Center) in Paris, France, and the Whitehead Institute Center for Genome Research today announced that they have produced a six-fold sequence coverage of Tetraodon nigroviridis, a type of puffer fish whose genome is estimated to be 380 million DNA letters long.
October 25, 2001
Researchers Identify Pathogen-specific Gene Response in Human Immune Cells Using DNA microarray technology, researchers at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research have discovered that a type of human immune cell, known as a dendritic cell, initiates an immune response that is tailor-made for specific infectious organisms. The researchers found that dendritic cells turn on different sets of genes, or a signature pattern of gene response, depending on whether the organism is a bacteria, virus, or fungus. This study shows that even at the earliest stages of infection, the human body knows the nature of the infectious organism, or pathogen, and responds with a specific type of immune response to eliminate the pathogen.
October 19, 2001
Scientists Find New Player in Cell Death Pathway Research from Robert Weinberg’s lab at the Whitehead Institute has uncovered a much sought after piece of the puzzle of how cells use a protein called p53 to voluntarily die when the cell’s DNA is damaged. In fact, p53 is defective in 50% of human cancers allowing the cells to multiply despite DNA mutations.
October 3, 2001
Scientists Build Case for "Haplotype" Map of Human Genome, Find New Gene for Crohn’s Disease In two companion papers this week, researchers from the Whitehead Institute Center for Genome Research report important findings that set the stage for the next steps in the Human Genome Project—mapping and identifying all the genes that predispose us to common diseases. The studies, one by Mark Daly, Eric Lander, and colleagues, and the other by John Rioux and colleagues at Whitehead Genome Center, provide the impetus for building a “haplotype” map of the genome—a map that will make it easier, faster, and perhaps cheaper to find disease-causing or disease-predisposing genes.
September 28, 2001
Researchers Build Diagram of Cell Cycle Clock For the first time, researchers at the Whitehead Institute have mapped the complete circuit of one of life's most fundamental processes—the cell cycle, which tells cells when to divide. This network diagram describes the genetic switches and connections that form the circuit common to a process found in all living organisms, from bacteria to human beings. The findings were published in the September 21 issue of Cell by Whitehead Member Richard Young and his colleagues.
August 6, 2001
Susan Lindquist Elected Director of the Whitehead Institute Acclaimed molecular biologist Susan L. Lindquist was today appointed director of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. A pioneering researcher with an interdisciplinary bent, Lindquist comes to the Whitehead from the University of Chicago where she is the Albert D. Lasker Professor of Medical Sciences, a Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. Lindquist succeeds Whitehead’s two previous directors, Nobel laureate David Baltimore and yeast genetics pioneer Gerald Fink.
July 5, 2001
New Study Shows Normal-Looking Clones May Be Abnormal Scientists have found the first evidence to show that even seemingly normal-looking clones may harbor serious abnormalities affecting gene expression that may not manifest themselves as outward characteristics. The findings, reported in the July 6 issue of Science by researchers at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and University of Hawaii, confirm the previous suspicion that reproductive cloning is not only inefficient, but may actually be unsafe.
May 17, 2001
Study Offers Insights into Evolutionary Origins of Life; Artificial Enzyme Able to Synthesize RNA In some of the strongest evidence yet to support the RNA world—an era in early evolution when life forms depended on RNA—scientists at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research have created an RNA catalyst, or a ribozyme, that possesses some of the key properties needed to sustain life in such a world.
May 9, 2001
New Finding Accelerates Discovery of Disease Genes and Human Population History In an exciting new development, scientists at the Whitehead Institute Center for Genome Research have found that single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in northern Europeans—the single letter DNA differences that underlie disease susceptibility and individual variation—travel together in blocks that are much larger than previously thought. The finding has major implications for mapping disease genes and dissecting human population history.
May 1, 2001
Scientists Track Down the Root of Cloning Problems Despite technological advances, two major problems continue to plague the field of animal cloning: few clones survive to term and those that do are often grotesquely large. The root of these problems has remained a mystery until now.
March 29, 2001
The Masculinization of the X Chromosome: Many Genes for Early Male Sperm Production Reside on the X Chromosome In an entirely counterintuitive result, scientists have found that nearly half of all genes related to the earliest stages of sperm production reside not on the male sex (Y) chromosome as expected, but on the X chromosome, a chromosome universally thought of as the female sex chromosome.
March 29, 2001
Cate Lab Zooms in on the Structure of Protein Factories Whitehead Associate Member Jamie Cate and his West Coast colleagues reported on an exciting image of the complete structure, including the moving parts, of an important molecule called the ribosome. This image zooms in on an intact ribosome—large protein factories found in all cells—at a higher resolution than scientists have ever viewed before.
March 2, 2001
Scientists Create First Animal Model of Rett Syndrome Researchers from the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research have created the long-awaited animal model for Rett syndrome, one of the most common causes of mental retardation in females with an incidence of 1 in 10,000–15,000. The transgenic mouse model sheds much-needed light on the underlying mechanism of the disease and suggests a new reason for hope in the research toward therapies.
February 15, 2001
AIDS: Taming the Modern Plague: High Schoolers Learn About Frontiers in HIV Research At the Whitehead Winter Lecture Series for High School Students, approximately 140 students from 40 area schools—and four students travelling from Singapore for the program—will hear about scientists’ efforts toward creating better therapies to combat HIV.
February 12, 2001
SNP Count Up to 1.4 Million: Map Accelerates Discovery of Disease Genes and Human Population History In a companion volume to the “Book of Life,” scientists have created the largest publicly available catalog of single letter DNA differences (SNPs)—1.4 million SNPs—with their exact location in the human genome. The SNP map promises to revolutionize both mapping diseases and tracing human history. Already, it is accelerating discovery of disease genes and providing a “fossil record” of human population history, which suggests that we are all descended from a small group of about 10,000 people.
February 12, 2001
International Human Genome Mapping Consortium Publishes Physical Map of the Human Genome The Human Genome Project international consortium today announced the publication of a draft sequence and initial analysis of the human genome–the genetic blueprint for a human being. The paper appears in the Feb.15 issue of the journal Nature. The draft sequence, which covers more than 90 percent of the human genome, represents the exact order of DNA’s four chemical bases–commonly abbreviated as A, T, C, and G–along the human chromosomes. This DNA text influences everything from eye color and height, to aging and disease.
February 5, 2001
Researchers Discover Weight-Loss Compound that Doesn’t Affect Food Intake Researchers from the Whitehead Institute and Genset Corporation have found a new compound that controls weight gain in obese mice without affecting their food intake. The compound, called gAcrp30 and administered in daily low doses, caused profound and sustained weight loss in chubby mice eating a cafeteria diet—meals high in fat and sugar and available in unlimited quantities. Continuing the low daily doses allowed the mice to keep the weight off over a sustained period of time despite their fattening diet. The results will be published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science on February 6 on the web and on February 13 in print.
February 1, 2001
Dangerous Beauty: Fungal Flowers Offer Clues to Biofilm Formation on Medical Implants At first glance, yeast growing on a jello-like medium look breathtakingly beautiful—like gossamer flowers with radial spokes emanating from a central hub (see cover of Science). But a florid fungus can be a dangerous beauty, able to coat medical implants with thin films causing serious complications in patients with hip and valve replacements. In fact, every year thousands of deaths can be traced to fungal infections around medical implants. Note: Excellent art available.
January 11, 2001
Scientists Discover Potent Protein that Prevents HIV Infection In a promising advance in the war against AIDS, scientists have designed a potent, new protein that can prevent HIV infection by blocking its entry into human cells. The protein, called 5-Helix and designed to bind to a region in the HIV coat protein gp41, is able to prevent a wide range of HIV strains from fusing to the cell membrane and thereby infecting it.
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Last updated December 18, 2001. |
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