News

About four years ago, a group of Whitehead researchers created the first genetically engineered human cancer cells in the lab. They infected normal cells in mice with cancer-causing genes, and waited for tumors to form. Some cells formed large tumors, but others yielded only small, harmless bumps. What went wrong? they wondered. Or rather, What went right?

David Guertin, a postdoctoral associate in the Sabatini lab, received the distinguished Damon Runyon Fellowship Award from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation.

Making a medical diagnosis today often relies on symptomology, bacterial cultures, stain tests, experience – and luck. But new research by systems biologists at Whitehead aims to offer physicians new diagnostic tools by uncovering important differences in the way immune cells respond to bacteria.

Faulty reprogramming of the genome is most likely the culprit behind abnormalities common in cloned animals, according to a review article in the July 17 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The magic-bullet approach to drug discovery has fallen short in treating the majority of human ailments. Doctors often rely instead on combination therapies that harness the power of multiple drugs. Researchers recently reported the development of the first systematic approach to screen for novel combination drugs, identifying several new pairings with significant therapeutic promise.

In an unprecedented alliance, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, and Whitehead Institute announced today they have joined forces with Los Angeles philanthropists Eli and Edythe L. Broad to create a new type of biomedical research institute, aimed at realizing the promise of the human genome to revolutionize clinical medicine and to make knowledge freely available to scientists around the world.

In the biological battle between the sexes, the Y chromosome has suffered defeat after defeat. The male-determining chromosome has seen its gene supply shrink from more than 1,000 genes when sex chromosomes first evolved, to what scientists once thought was only a handful of genes, a downward trend predicted to continue until the Y disappeared altogether.

Scientist David Sabatini was studying a group of proteins that control cell growth, when he hit a roadblock. So, Sabatini did what many creative scientists do when faced with such a dilemma: He invented a new technique to solve his problem.

When a few weeds appear on your front lawn, you can easily pick them off one by one. But if they start taking over the yard, the picking becomes laborious, and you may need to turn to a chemical weed-killer to hold the invaders in check. After several applications of the herbicide, however, the weeds could become resistant, forcing you to use an even more powerful solution. Meanwhile, the survival of your lawn hangs in the balance.

Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research Director Susan Lindquist and Whitehead Founding Member and former director Gerald Fink have been elected to the American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in the United States devoted to the advancement of scientific and scholarly inquiry.