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David P. Bartel, PhD
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Member, Whitehead Institute
Professor of Biology, MIT
Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
617.258.5287
dbartel@wi.mit.edu
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Whitehead Member David Bartel has made major contributions to recent advances in understanding the roles that ribonucleic acid (RNA) plays in contemporary biology and may have played in early evolution.
Selected achievements
•Discovered the abundance of microRNAs,
small RNA molecules that are important for gene
regulation
•Developed the methodology to accurately
predict the regulatory targets of microRNAs in
both plants and animals
•Ascertained molecular consequences and
biological roles of microRNA regulation, including
how a microRNA helps prevent human cancer
•Discovered heterochromatic siRNAs, which
direct DNA silencing, and other types of small
regulatory RNAs
•Created ribozyme (RNA enzyme) that synthesizes
pieces of RNA, bolstering the "RNA world" theory
•AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize (2002)
•NAS Molecular Biology Award (2005)
•Institut de France Louis-D. Prize (2005) |
The Bartel lab was among those to report the existence of hundreds of tiny RNAs, known as microRNAs, which regulate the expression of protein-coding genes in animal and plant cells. Together with their colleagues, they then developed, for both plants and animals, the methodology needed to identify which genes each microRNA regulates. Among other findings, their analyses indicate that well over one third of human protein-coding genes are targets of microRNAs, and that microRNAs influence the expression or evolution of a large majority of the mammalian messenger RNAs. Their experiments focusing on particular microRNAs and targets made major contributions to the understanding of molecular consequences and biological roles of microRNA action, including how microRNAs play important roles in plant development and how the interaction between a human microRNA and one of its regulatory targets helps prevent human cancers.
While searching for additional microRNAs, the Bartel lab discovered other types of small regulatory RNAs, including "heterochromatic" siRNAs, which direct DNA silencing. The Bartel group also made significant contributions in developing RNA interference, a powerful biochemical tool that works by blocking the delivery of genetic messages from DNA. Important advances for the small interfering RNA technique, which extends RNAi to mammalian cells, began in Bartel's laboratory.
In earlier work, Bartel and his colleagues investigated RNA's ability to catalyze reactions and studied how new RNA enzymes (ribozymes) emerge. The group created new ribozymes with enzymatic activities thought to have been required early in evolution, before the emergence of enzymes made of protein. For example, the researchers generated a ribozyme that synthesizes small pieces of RNA, supporting the idea of an "RNA world" during the early evolution of life that featured RNA self-replication.
Bartel joined Whitehead Institute in 1994 as a Whitehead Fellow, following the completion of his PhD at Harvard University. In 1996 he was appointed an Associate Member of Whitehead and assistant professor of biology at MIT. Bartel is now a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, a Member at Whitehead and professor at MIT.
Selected publications
Ruby, J.G. Jan, C.H., and Bartel, D.P. (2007). Intronic microRNA precursors that bypass Drosha processing. Nature 448: 83-86
Grimson, A., Farh, K. K., Johnston, W.K., Garrett-Engele, P., Lim, L.P., and Bartel, D.P. (2007). MicroRNA targeting specificity in mammals: determinants beyond seed pairing. Mol. Cell 27: 91-105
Mayr, C., Hemann, M.T., and Bartel, D.P. (2007). Disrupting the
pairing between let-7 and Hmga2 enhances oncogenic
transformation.
Science 16: 1576-1579
Axtell, M.J., Jan, C., Rajagopalan, R., and Bartel,
D.P. (2006). A conserved trigger for siRNA biogenesis
in plants. Cell 127: 565-577
Ruby, J.G., Jan, C., Player, C., Axtell, M.J., Lee,
W., Nusbaum, C., Ge, H., and Bartel, D.P. (2006). Large-scale
sequencing reveals 21U-RNAs and additional microRNAs
and endogenous siRNAs in Caenorhabditis elegans.
Cell 127: 1193-1207
Farh, K.K., Grimson, A., Jan, C., Lewis, B.P., Johnston,
W.K., Lim, L.P., Burge C.B., Bartel, D.P (2005). The
widespread impact of mammalian microRNAs on mRNA repression
and evolution. Science 310: 1817-1821.
Lewis, B.P., Burge, C.B., and Bartel, D.P. (2005). Conserved
seed pairing, often flanked by adenosines, indicates
that thousands of human genes are microRNA targets. Cell
120: 15-20.
Reinhart, B.J. and Bartel, D.P. (2002). Small
RNAs correspond to centromere heterochromatic repeats. Science
297: 1831.
Rhoades, M.W., Reinhart, B.J., Lim, L.P., Burge, C.B.,
Bartel, B., and Bartel, D.P. (2002). Prediction
of plant microRNA targets. Cell 110: 513-520 .
Lau, N.C., Lim, L.P., Weinstein, E.G., and Bartel,
D.P. (2001). An abundant class of tiny RNAs with
probable regulatory roles in Caenorhabditis elegans. Science
294: 858-862.
Johnston, W.K., Unrau, P.J., Lawrence, M.S., Glasner,
M.E., and Bartel, D.P. (2001). RNA-catalyzed RNA
polymerization: Accurate and general RNA-templated primer
extension. Science 292: 1319-1325.
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