News

The Whitehead Institute Board of Directors has announced that David Page will be the interim director of the Institute, effective this month, December 2004.

One of the best ways to discover a gene’s function is to disable it and then see how that affects the cell. But doing this for an entire genome is a complicated process requiring a great deal of time and machinery. Researchers at Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, however, have developed a prototype for testing every gene in a whole genome using only four glass slides.

Alex d’Arbeloff has been named Chair of the Board of Directors for Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. d’Arbeloff, former Chair of the MIT Corporation, founder of Teradyne, Inc. and current Professor of the Practice at MIT Sloan School of Management, succeeds Maxine Singer, President Emerita of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

As the U.S. pumps billions into research on everything from anthrax and plague to military biohazard suits, what's the effect on our science—and our security?

Finding molecules that can potentially be developed into therapies is a time-consuming, cumbersome process. Now, Whitehead scientists have developed a way to simplify the process so that a library of 5,000 molecular drug candidates can potentially be screened on a single slide.

Both sides of the debate on therapeutic cloning are fighting for life and against death. It's probably the only thing they have in common.

Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research will receive the 2004 History Makers Award, presented by the Boston History Collaborative “for pioneering discoveries in biomedical research, including spearheading the Human Genome Project.”

The United States Department of Defense has awarded a $296,568 grant to Joon-Ho Sheen, a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Whitehead Institute Associate Member David Sabatini.

Konrad Hochedlinger, a postdoctoral associate in the lab of Whitehead Member Rudolf Jaenisch, has been selected by a Whitehead committee to receive the Genzyme Postdoctoral Fellowship at Whitehead Institute.

When genes work, they stick around. And so do many of the biological processes they create. As Whitehead Member Hazel Sive put it, kicking off Whitehead Symposium XXII—Disease, Development and Darwin—the process of evolution “conserves circuitry.”