The award recognizes ten years of peer reviewed, NINS-funded research on the mechanisms and actions of Hedgehog signaling in the mammalian embryo. [more]

Focusing this year on immunology and infectious disease, the third annual MCB/HHMI High School Fall Outreach Program was launched on October 6. The program, which consists of a series of lectures by Harvard faculty and lecturers, followed by group activities with MCB faculty and graduate students, is cosponsored by MCB and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). [more]

Research with fruit flies, particularly a species known as Drosophila melanogaster, has produced some of biology’s most important findings: including the chromosomal theory of inheritance, the first evidence for X-ray induced mutagenesis and the basic genetic mechanisms underlying animal development. Drosophila biologists still lead in genetics research today, in part by interacting with FlyBase, one of the most sophisticated genome databases in existence. [more]

The metamorphosis from postdoc to principal investigator is one of the most exhilarating transitions in the life of a scientist.  Nicole Francis, who was recently appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB), is presently in the midst of it.  She’s getting her Harvard lab in the Fairchild Building up and running so she can continue her exciting line of research—unraveling the puzzle of how Polycomb Group (PcG) proteins influence the stability of gene expression through generations of cell division. [more]

Erin O'Shea, an internationally renowned cell and systems biologist, will be joining MCB. Erin is currently an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of California at San Francisco, and will be joining the Harvard faculty in the summer of 2005. [more]

This work (Neuron 2004, 44:651-661) decides a question that has lingered for nearly 30 years concerning the way in which excess nerve branches disappear in the developing nervous system. By combining two different approaches, we came to an unexpected conclusion: glial cells are eating up pieces of axons that are being removed from sites of former of synaptic contact. [more]

It was July 1976 and Tom Maniatis—long-haired and Birkenstocked—stood on the balcony of the Cambridge City Hall watching protesters who were calling for a ban on all research involving recombinant DNA. [more]

We are very pleased to announce that Alex Schier has agreed to join our Department in the summer of 2005 as Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology. [more]

Nearly everything about MCB’s 2004 Research Retreat was new, as an unprecedented 230 participants met for the first time at Ocean Edge Resort in Brewster. Held October 15- 17, the event drew MCB members as well as representatives of other FAS biology departments, who all caught glimpses of new research and fresh looks at old perplexing questions. [more]

How much of our behavior is determined by our genes and how much by our environment?  Fiercely debated but not fully resolved, the nature-vs.-nurture question is something with which we continue to grapple.  But research on the developing, adult and even aging brain is providing us with new ways of thinking about this issue – ways that, finally, promise answers. [more]

Matthew Meselson, a Harvard molecular biologist whose famous experiment substantiated the newly discovered double-helix structure of DNA and who prompted the United States to drop its biological and chemical weapons programs, has won a Lasker Award, a scientific honor sometimes referred to as "America's Nobel." [more]

Writer-director Cheryl Vaughan sits at the lab bench, fine tuning the script and beginning to sweat from the hot bright light that Leigh Stimolo is focusing on her... [more]

A fundamental challenge in the field of development is to understand the entire program of gene transcription for a single differentiating cell type in terms of an underlying regulatory circuit. Such an understanding involves the identification on a genomewide basis of all of the genes that are switched on and off during the course of differentiation and an elucidation of the regulatory pathway that governs the program. [more]

In order to honor the scientific career of Howard C. Berg in his 70th year, a symposium involving several of his colleagues and former students is being held in the Harvard University Science Center on Saturday, October 2nd. [more]

The MCB-HHMI Outreach Program, cosponsored by the department and the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes, held its second annual summer session for biology teachers in mid-July.  Eighteen dynamic high school teachers from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Maine immersed themselves in a two-week workshop that focused on immunology and the use of multimedia in the classroom. [more]

A paper in the August 24 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A., from the Kleckner lab provides a new theory of chromosome function that may have important implications for research in the field. [more]

A paper by Nicholas Ingolia in the June 15, 2004, issue of PLoS Biology demonstrates that the robustness of biological systems arises from a specific kind of on/off mechanism. Analyzing the structure of the genetic network revealed feedback loops that are crucial to its robust functioning.  Moreover, these loops have switchlike behavior, meaning that they are either entirely on or entirely off and will not remain in an intermediate state. [more]

Harvard University launches the Center for Brain Science, with MCB Professor Joshua R. Sanes as its first Director. Armed with a better understanding of neural circuitry, scientists could discover much more about how healthy brains work, how circuitry alters with aging, and what goes awry in disease. [more]

As a scientist, Andrew Murray, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, studies cell division and evolution. As director of the Bauer Center for Genomics Research, Murray has assembled a group of young scientists seeking the general principles of biological design in a collective effort with mathematicians, physicists, and computer scientists. That means Murray may find himself on familiar ground when he begins his new duties as chair of the MCB department on July 1. [more]

Neurons analyze and transmit information in the brain. Information is transferred from one neuron to another through the functional contact sites called synapses. When a neuron is activated, it releases a neurotransmitter from its synaptic vesicles, which are concentrated at the presynaptic axon terminal. [more]

To Axel Nohturfft of Harvard’s Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, cholesterol is a scientific puzzle.  He also knows it can be a serious health factor, even a matter of life and death. Nohturfft studies the molecule’s biochemical complexities and, specifically, how a rare but lethal genetic disease strikes down children because their cells can’t metabolize it normally. [more]

Jack L. Strominger, Higgins Professor of Biochemistry in MCB, is the recipient of the 2004 ASBMB-Merck Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to research in biochemistry and molecular biology.  In conjunction with the Award, Dr. Strominger spoke at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) in Boston, June 15, on "The Structure of MHC Proteins and the Therapy of Multiple Sclerosis." [more]

Bio Sci 50 and MCB 100 are not your father's biology courses. They are not even your big sister's, and she graduated just a few years ago. Instead, these classes have been created or radically redesigned by Harvard's Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB) faculty since 2000. [more]

A paper just published from the Kleckner lab in Cell ("Crossover/noncrossover differentiation, synaptonemal complex formation, and regulatory surveillance at the leptotene/zygotene transition of meiosis," Cell 117, 29–45, April 2, 2004) sheds important new light on the processes required for regular homolog segregation. [more]

Matthew Michael has been named Associate Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology. Michael, who joined the MCB faculty in 2000, studies mechanisms and pathways that maintain genome stability, using biochemistry in Xenopus egg extracts together with genetic analysis in C. elegans. [more]

In his role as Chair of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) Life Sciences Council, Doug Melton, Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences, will lead the life sciences development at Harvard into new phases of development, growth, and improvement. [more]

Researchers in the lab of MCB department chair Andrew McMahon have traced one of the earliest molecular signals necessary to sculpt faces with jaws, cheeks, and front incisors. They have also identified key transcription factors that may code for specific features to form in the correct locations. [more]

"We at Merck are happy and proud to be associated with such great science," commented Mervyn Turner, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Licensing & External Research, Merck & Co., Inc., as he congratulated the winners of this year's Merck Genome-Related Research Awards.   "We were struck by the excellence of the proposals this year, and we decided to add two additional postdoctoral awards." [more]

Rachelle Gaudet, Assistant Professor at Harvard University in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, is a recipient of the 2004 McKnight Scholar Award. This prestigious award is granted to young neurobiologists who are in the early stages of establishing their independent laboratories. The McKnight Endowment Fund seeks innovative research in the field of brain function and diseases. [more]

Citing her outstanding research on the identity of essential signaling components of the murine vomeronasal organ, Catherine Dulac, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, was among the 202 new Fellows elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. [more]

A paper from the Melton group (Dor, Brown, Martinez, and Melton, in the May 6 issue of Nature ) introduces a simple and general lineage analysis method to determine the relative contribution of stem cells and differentiated cells to the maintenance of a given tissue. The system, based on transgenic mice expressing a tamoxifen-dependent Cre recombinase, is applied for the study of pancreatic beta cell dynamics. [more]

The Bacterial Movie Theater of Professor Howard Berg shows nothing but action films. Harking back to the early days of motion pictures, these movies are silent and shot in black and white. And the manic movements of the actors–bacteria dashing madly about, twitching, gliding, or just spinning in circles–add a Keystone Kops touch. [more]

A new institute designed to advance stem cell research held its inaugural symposium on April 23. The Harvard Stem Cell Institute, as it is called, will draw some critical resources from private funding and provide support for scientists investigating adult and embryonic stem cells. [more]

"Understanding how RNA molecules carry out chemical reactions may help us make connections between an earlier, primordial RNA world and what we see in modern biology," says Howard Hughes Medical Investigator Jennifer A. Doudna, who on May 16 will deliver the 9th Pfizer Lecture in Memory of Konrad Bloch. [more]

A new center established to advance stem-cell research was announced by Harvard University. The Harvard Stem Cell Institute, as it is called, will draw some of its funding from the private sector and provide support for scientists investigating adult and embryonic stem cells. The overarching goal of the Institute is to understand and harness the biology of stem cells in order to treat diseases in which specific kinds of cells are either defective or absent. [more]

The annual John M. Prather Lectures in Biology will showcase the work of Thomas Jessell, a Columbia University Medical Center neuroscientist who has spent many years untangling no less a problem than how behavior is encoded in the vertebrate nervous system. [more]

The story of how the new cells were derived is one of collaboration and shared expertise. Each participating scientist brought relevant experience to the table, but none had ever derived human ES cells from start to finish. [more]

Craig Hunter has been named a Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology at MCB. Hunter, who has taught at Harvard since 1997, studies the molecular pathways through which hereditary information is used to build embryos. [more]

The field of microbiology, pulsing with new excitement, has become a magnet for scientists from such varied disciplines as earth and planetary sciences, evolutionary biology, environmental microbiology and ecology, and synthetic chemistry. [more]

Joshua R. Sanes (left) and Jeff W. Lichtman (right), senior faculty recently recruited in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and the first recruits for Harvard's Center for Brain Science, are synapse experts: Sanes has made key discoveries about how these vital connections are formed, while Lichtman's forte is understanding how they are eliminated. [more]

MCB Professor Doug Melton has produced 17 new human embryonic stem cell lines and made them available to scientists around the world. The cells were created with private money, a move that allowed Melton and his colleagues to bypass White House limits on this type of research. [more]

Xiangshu Jin, a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Rachelle Gaudet, Assistant professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, is the first recipient of the Jeffries Wyman Fellowship awarded in MCB.   The fellowship, endowed by Jeffries Wyman III in honor of his father, supports the work of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows working in molecular biology, particularly in biophysical chemistry and structure and function of biological macromolecules. [more]

Nearly 500 high school biology students are participating in the Spring Biology Laboratory Workshops, being offered jointly by MCB and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Students are exploring the discovery processes involved in one of four different laboratory experiences: PCR and gel electrophoresis, Animal behavior and genetics - Fly learning and memory, The heart and the ECG, and Vertebrate nervous system. [more]

Over 100 students from five of the Cambridge Elementary Schools enjoyed a science-laboratory visit to Harvard, cosponsored by the MCB/HHMI Outreach Program and the Harvard ExperiMentors, a student outreach program run out of the Phillips Brooks House Association. [article in Harvard Gazette] [article in the Cambridge Chronicle]

Lawrence Bogorad, Maria Moors Cabot professor of biology emeritus, died on 28 December 2003. Dr. Bogorad, known for his research on photosynthesis and plant genetics, was a member of the faculty for several decades. [more]