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Cells are dividing all the time, and that’s a good thing. If they didn’t, our tissue and organs couldn’t replenish themselves, and pretty soon we’d be done for. But when cell division goes wrong, it can have disastrous results, such as cancer and birth defects. Scientists in the lab of Whitehead Member Terry Orr-Weaver have uncovered one of the primary mechanisms governing cell division.

2005 is off to a good start for Whitehead Member David Bartel. In January, he and his colleagues published a landmark paper in the journal Cell. A week later he was honored with the National Academy of Science's prestigious Award in Molecular Biology. And in March, Bartel was appointed Investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).

Whitehead Institute has joined ten other leading biomedical organizations in an $18 million, three-year public-private consortium that will create a comprehensive library of gene inhibitors to be made available to the entire scientific community.

Robert S. Langer, the Germeshausen Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, has been named Institute Professor, the highest honor awarded by the MIT faculty and administration.

For nearly a decade, scientists have been trying to fully understand a particular communication pathway inside of cells that contributes to many malignant brain and prostate cancers.

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has recognized the work of Whitehead Member and MIT Professor of Biology David Bartel by presenting him the NAS Award in Molecular Biology. Each year a medal and a prize of $25,000 goes to a young scientist for a recent notable discovery in molecular biology.

Researchers from Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered that a kind of RNA molecule called microRNA regulates more than 5,300 human genes, or nearly one-third of the genome’s protein coding regions.

A growing list of mammals is joining humans, mice, and chimpanzees in the exclusive club of those whose whole genome has been sequenced—giving complete and matching sets of each animal's DNA, and offering researchers the opportunity to rebuild biology and medicine from the ground up.

In the 19th century, mathematical formulas didn’t figure much into biology. But when Austrian monk Gregor Mendel crossed and counted his round and wrinkled peas, he found something unexpected: a pattern.

It began as an experiment. Take a young scientist, unproven as an independent researcher, and give her the space, resources and support needed to launch a lab. Challenge her to take a risky project from idea to reality under her own steam. Then, as with any good experiment, examine the results.