A Fruitful Pursuit: Plant Biology at Whitehead Institute
January 24, 2019
Decades of pioneering plant research at Whitehead Institute have led to biological insights and useful discoveries
Tag: Fink Lab
Revising the textbook on introns
January 16, 2019
Whitehead Institute researchers uncover a group of introns in yeast with surprising stability and function
Whitehead Institute Founding Member Gerald Fink Receives Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Killian Award
May 16, 2018
The award, which is among MIT’s highest honors, recognizes Fink’s standing as a scientist who has fundamentally changed the way researchers approach biological problems
CRISPR-Cas genome editing of Candida albicans holds promise for overcoming deadly fungal infections
April 3, 2015
Candida albicans is a human pathogen that causes potentially lethal infections in immunocompromised individuals. Efforts to overcome Candida’s innate resistance to many drugs have been thwarted by an absence of tools enabling genetic modifications. Now, using a modified CRISPR-Cas system, Whitehead Institute researchers can edit the fungus’s genome systematically—an approach that could help scientists understand Candida’s unique biology and identify potential drug targets.
Scientists develop novel approach to boost biofuel production
October 2, 2014
MIT and Whitehead Institute researchers have identified a new way to boost yeast tolerance to ethanol simply by altering the composition of the medium in which the yeast are grown. They believe this finding could have a significant impact on industrial biofuel production.
Scientists discover RNA modifications in some unexpected places
September 15, 2014
Deploying sophisticated high-throughput sequencing technology, dubbed ψ-seq, a team of Whitehead Institute and Broad Institute researchers collaborated on a comprehensive, high-resolution mapping of ψ sites that confirms pseudouridylation, the most common post-transcriptional modification, does indeed occur naturally in mRNA.
Engineering cells for more efficient biofuel production
February 17, 2013
Whitehead Institute and MIT chemical engineers and biologists have now devised a way to dramatically boost isobutanol production in yeast, which naturally make it in small amounts. They engineered yeast so that isobutanol synthesis takes place entirely within mitochondria, cell structures that generate energy and also host many biosynthetic pathways.
Whitehead Founding Member Gerald Fink announced as President-elect of AAAS
January 25, 2013
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) today announced that Whitehead Institute Founding Member Gerald R. Fink has been chosen as its President-elect for 2013.
Noncoding RNAs alter yeast phenotypes in a site-specific manner
February 14, 2012
A team of scientists from Whitehead Institute and other institutions has shown for the first time how two long intergenic noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) in brewer’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) contribute to a location-dependent switch for the yeast FLO11 gene to toggle between active and inactive states.
Protein unmasks pathogenic fungi to activate immune response
August 8, 2011
Whitehead Institute researchers have uncovered a novel association between two fungal recognition receptors on the surface of certain immune cells, called macrophages. The interaction of these receptors (dectin-1 and galectin-3) sheds new light on how the innate immune system discriminates between non-pathogenic and pathogenic fungi.
Gerald Fink awarded 2010 Gruber Genetics Prize
June 30, 2010
Whitehead Institute Founding Member Gerald Fink has been awarded the 2010 Genetics Prize of The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation for his groundbreaking research in yeast genetics.
White blood cells are picky about sugar
July 11, 2007
Neutrophils recognize and respond to a particular form of sugar contained on the surface of pathogenic fungi.