News

Please join us on Friday, September 22 as we celebrate the establishment of the David Baltimore Chair in Biomedical Research.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) has selected Whitehead Institute postdoctoral researcher Maiko Kitaoka as a Hanna H. Gray Fellow. As one of 25 scientists selected for the prestigious appointment this year, Kitaoka will receive funding that supports her postdoctoral training and may continue into her early career year as independent faculty.

Mark Greenwood is a postdoc in Whitehead Institute Member Pulin Li’s lab studying hormone signaling. We sat down with Mark to learn more about him and his experiences in and out of the lab.

Whitehead Institute Founding Member Rudolf Jaenisch and colleagues found that SARS-Cov-2 can infect sensory neurons and alter their gene expression. This may help to explain the peripheral nervous system symptoms associated with Covid-19, such as loss of smell.

Whitehead Institute Member Olivia Corradin and colleagues have developed a system to find patterns in seemingly random differences between the genomes of people affected and unaffected by a disease. They can use these patterns to identify genes that contribute to complex diseases and disorders, such as opioid use disorder.

Research from Whitehead Institute Member Yukiko Yamashita’s lab finds that a retrotransposon, a genetic element often thought of as a parasite, actually plays an important role in rejuvenating an important region of DNA, preserving fertility in flies.

Whitehead Institute Member David Page and colleagues have discovered that the so-called inactive X chromosome contributes a lot more to gene expression—and gene regulation—than its name implies.

Once considered genomic “junk,” repetitive sequences in DNA are being discovered to have important roles in our biology. Whitehead Institute researchers are investigating different types of these repeated sequences, from repetitive DNA regions to excessive repeats within genes, in order to understand what roles they play in cells and how they contribute to health and disease.

Pavana Rotti is a postdoc in Whitehead Institute Member Olivia Corradin’s lab studying the neurobiology of opioid use disorder. We sat down with Pavana to learn more about her and her experiences in and out of the lab.