News

Whitehead Fellows receive dedicated lab space and comprehensive lab funding, access to shared
technical facilities, and many opportunities to engage with Institute and MIT faculty and the
Kendall Square research and innovation environments.

A new screening method in the parasite Toxoplasma gondii allows researchers to look beyond whether or not a gene is essential to survival and track the gene’s product through time and physical space 

Whitehead Institute Member Mary Gehring was a featured presenter at a recent symposium sponsored by the MIT Climate Grand Challenges initiative.

This year’s Vanderbilt Prize in Biomedical Science will be awarded to Whitehead Institute director Ruth Lehmann. It recognizes women scientists with a stellar record of research accomplishments who also have made significant contributions to mentoring other women in science.

Researchers in Whitehead Institute Founding Member Rudolf Jaenisch’s lab tackled the problem of how to make mature liver from stem cells in the lab, and found that thyroid hormone signaling plays a key role.

A pain-causing compound in the Australian stinging tree has applications for cancer treatment, but it’s difficult to harvest enough to study. Whitehead Institute scientists present a way to synthesize the compound in the leaves of harmless tobacco plants, and potentially in a culture dish.

New research from the lab of Whitehead Institute Founding Member Robert Weinberg shows that cells change in diverse ways through the actions of the epithelial-mesenchymal transition, which can influence whether cells are able to form new tumors after they spread.

Evolution is often furthered through conflict. New research from the lab of Whitehead Institute Member Mary Gehring zeros in on how parent plants butt heads over control of gene expression in the nutrient rich tissue called the endosperm.

Anh Nguyen is a postdoc in Whitehead Institute Member Ankur Jain’s lab studying molecules in soil-dwelling amoebae that, in humans, can contribute to neurodegenerative diseases. We sat down with Nguyen to learn more about her and her experiences in and out of the lab.

When we take in energy as food or drink, a complex suite of chemical reactions allow us to turn it into usable fuel. The sum of these reactions, within each cell and throughout the body, makes up our metabolism. In this multimedia collection, learn how Whitehead Institute researchers are delving into the mechanisms behind metabolism from a variety of angles. Click here to explore the series!