Immune System

Whitehead Institute Member Jonathan Weissman and colleagues used large-scale systematic genetic screens to identify the molecules and pathways that populate the mitochondrial surface with important and diverse signaling proteins. They deciphered the logic by which the cell ensures the proper delivery of these proteins. These findings may have important implications for understanding the impact on health and disease when these processes go awry.

Whitehead Institute Member Jonathan Weissman and collaborators developed a tool to reconstruct the family trees and individual states of cells in humans, revealing how blood cell production changes in old age.

Researchers in the lab of Whitehead Institute Founding Member Robert Weinberg have determined how mesenchymal cancer cells may resist treatment, work that may allow them to make once-resistant tumors respond to certain cancer therapies.

Tobiloba Oni—a cell biologist whose graduate research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory helped open new paths for understanding, detecting, and potential treating pancreatic cancer—has been appointed as a Whitehead Fellow.

Using red blood cells modified to carry disease-specific antigens, a team of scientists from Whitehead Institute and Boston Children’s Hospital have prevented and alleviated two autoimmune diseases—multiple sclerosis (MS) and type 1 diabetes—in early stage mouse models.  This research is an exciting step toward therapeutics for autoimmune diseases, which affect an estimated 23 million Americans.