NEWS ARCHIVE: 2007

Meister Lab: The Eye Has a Short Attention Span

No matter how hard we fix our gaze, our eyes are in constant motion due to involuntary head and eye movements. The resulting image motion on our retinas can be quite substantial as is aptly demonstrated by the Hermann-Hering illusion. [more]

Gelbart Lab: Genome Analysis of Twelve Drosophila Species

On Thursday, November 8, there was a birth announcement that has been two years in the making: the initial publications on the comparative genome analysis of the entire DNA sequences of 12 species of fruit fly (genus Drosophila). The announcement will include two main papers in Nature describing the community effort. [more]

Summer Research in Bangalore

Through the Harvard-Bangalore Science Initiative, MCB Professor Venkatesh Murthy, along with Professor L. Mahadevan from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, is working to connect these two scientific centers of Cambridge, Massachsuetts and Bangalore, India. [more]

In a paper published in the November 1 issue of Nature (Livet et al, 2007), we present transgenic strategies that give rise to multicolor neuronal labeling in each brain. We use DNA recombination to randomly shuffle in each nerve cell genes for fluorescent proteins of different colors. As a result of this method, each nerve cell expresses its own mixture of red, green, and blue fluorescent proteins. [more]

The annual John T. Edsall Lecture returns on Thursday, November 8th with Sir John Skehel of the National Institute of Medical Research. Skehel, a leading virologist, is well known at Harvard for his collaboration with Don Wiley to decipher the mechanism of membrane fusion, which lasted until Wiley’s death in 2001. [more]

This year’s Peralta Prize has been awarded to Christopher Murphy of the Matt Michael lab in MCB for his graduate work, “Mechanism of Checkpoint Activation at the Midblastula Transition”. The annual Prize recognizes the single outstanding dissertation proposal submitted by 2nd year graduate students and includes $1500 travel and $1000 personal awards. It is given in memory of Prof. Ernest Peralta of MCB. [more]

Michael Rust and Joe Markson, a postdoc and graduate student in Erin O’Shea’s lab, sought to understand the underlying mechanism that allows the core circadian system found in cyanobacteria to generate stable oscillation. [more]

In February 2005, a group of Harvard University graduate students spent the better part of a weekend packing up boxes of used laboratory instruments (electrophoresis equipment, magnetic stirplates, a vacuum concentrator) as well as surplus lab supplies (culture dishes, pipettes, and centrifuge tubes). In total, they filled over 30 cartons with supplies and machines collected from labs around the Harvard campuses, shipping it all to a small lab in Argentina that, a few months earlier, they never even knew existed... [more]

Nobel Laureate and former MCB Professor Jim Watson will be presenting a public lecture entitled "Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science" on Wednesday, October 3rd at Harvard Memorial Chruch. [more]

Andrew McMahon, Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science within MCB and a principal faculty of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, was recently admitted into The Royal Society of London, the oldest scientific society in existence. Selection recognizes those scientists, engineers and mathematicians who amongst UK or Commonwealth citizens have made exceptional contributions to the "Improvement of Natural Knowledge". [more]

Choi et al. developed a technology to block the interaction between microRNAs and their target sites in specific mRNAs. They found that antisense morpholino oligonucleotides complementary to microRNA binding sites protected mRNAs from microRNA-mediated repression. These target protectors allow the analysis of specific microRNA-mRNA pairs. [more]

Perhaps you have had the experience of walking into a new environment, such as a Moroccan bazaar or a Chinese supermarket for the first time, and being struck by the strength of novel odors in that environment. Odors present in familiar environments such as your own home barely register in your consciousness. Why is this so? Our recent experiments suggest that part of this adaptation may occur in one of the first steps in the olfactory pathway, right behind your nose. [more]

In a set of experiments published in the August 5th issue of Nature (Kimchi, Xu, & Dulac, 2007) we have shown that the vomeronasal organ (VNO), an olfactory sensory organ in the nasal cavity of many mammals (although not in humans nor in higher primates) which detects pheromones, is responsible for the control of male- and female-specific social and sexual behaviors. [more]

On Friday, March 16th, thirty Harvard undergraduates participated in Professor Richard Losick’s HHMI-funded "Freshmen from Economically and Educationally Disadvantaged backgrounds in Science" (FEEDS) initiative. Losick, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor and the Maria Moors Cabot Professor of Biology in MCB, developed the FEEDS program in 2002 to involve freshman from disadvantaged science backgrounds in long-term, inquiry-based research projects. [more]

In an exciting breakthrough the Maniatis lab has now identified a critical link between miRNA and alternative splicing in the nervous system. Specifically, they showed that an abundant neuron-specific miRNA called miR-124 directly targets mRNA encoding PTBP1, a global repressor of nervous system-specific alternative pre-mRNA splicing. [more]

The brain’s cognitive abilities fascinate most people in neuroscience, but Catherine Dulac is drawn to the non-cerebral, genetically encoded, instinctive behaviors on which an animal’s very survival depends. She has devoted her meteoric career to learning how olfaction underlies relevant murine behaviors like mating, male aggression towards rivals, and maternal devotion. [more]

Rachelle Gaudet has been selected to receive a Klingenstein Fellowship Award in the Neurosciences for 2007 for her project, "Structural biology of temperature sensing by the TRPM8 channel". Gaudet, Assistant Professor in MCB, will received $150,000 over a three-year period beginning July 1. [more]

The 16th International C. elegans Meeting was held at UCLA at the end of June. One of the meeting highlights was the fifth anniversary of the worm art show, which runs concurrent with the poster sessions. This year, members of the Craig Hunter Lab won five of the thirteen awards. [more]

In the May 15th issue of Genes & Development, Allen et al., demonstrate a novel role for the cell surface protein growth arrest specific 1 (Gas1) in the promotion of Shh signaling in multiple tissues during mouse embryogenesis. [more]

Everyone has felt burning pain sensations, whether it was from touching something that was too hot or eating their favorite spicy food. Taking the example of spicy food a bit further, the first bites typically taste hotter than the next ones. That is because the receptors that sense heat reduce their activity when under the constant presence of a stimulus; in other words, they desensitize. This paper from the Gaudet lab (Lishko et al (2007) Neuron) addresses the molecular mechanisms for regulating the heat receptor sensitivity. [more]

On March 6, Professor Howard Berg was presented with the Biophysical Society’s annual U.S. Genomics Award for Outstanding Investigator in the Field of Single Molecule Biology (SMB). Then, on March 26, Dr. Berg of MCB was awarded a Doctor of Science honoris causa degree from the University of Osnabrück’s Faculty of Biology and Chemistry. [more]

Our lab sought other cell types besides oocytes that might be able to reprogram a somatic nucleus. The zygote, as the fertilized cell that most closely resembles the oocyte, seemed the obvious choice. [more]

Nuclear transfer experiments, such as the cloning of Dolly the sheep, have demonstrated that the genome of differentiated adult cells can be reset to an embryonic state, indicating that restrictions on a cell’s developmental potency can be erased. Understanding the factors that mediate this process has been a long sought-after goal in the field of nuclear reprogramming. [more]

Several students associated with MCB faculty have been awarded 2007 Thomas T. Hoopes Prizes. The annual Prizes are awarded to undergraduates for exceptional scholarly efforts, usually senior theses. [more]

Vicki Sato figured she could give herself two years with a new biotech startup company before she acquired the “mark of Cain” that would prevent her from returning to academia. Twenty-five years later, just when she retired as a captain of biotechnology, MCB has lured her back, and so has the Business School. [more]

The Hedgehog signaling pathway represents one of approximately six major families of signaling pathways that dictate development in most bilateria. An especially interesting property of Hedgehog signaling is that it acts as a morphogen in the vertebrate neural tube, specifying the fate of several ventral neuronal sub-types in a dose-dependent fashion. [more]

Itay Yanai, a post-doc in the Craig Hunter lab, created the poster about exploring the degree of differences in gene expression between two organisms (C. elegans and C. briggsae) that are morphologically near-identical but genetically more different than human is to mouse. MCB took 2nd place in the contest, as well, with a poster by Steve Vokes of the McMahon lab. [more]

The annual Bloch lecture returns on Thursday, May 31st, with Randy Schekman, Professor, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Research in Schekman’s lab is devoted to a molecular description of the process of membrane assembly and vesicular traffic in eukaryotic cells. [more]

The annual John M. Prather Lectures in Biology will showcase the work of David Kingsley, Professor of Developmental Biology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Stanford University School of Medicine. As an evolutionary biologist, Kingsley studies one of the biggest questions about life: "We’re interested in how evolution creates new organisms", he says. [more]

Proper polarization of neurons during development is essential for circuit function. In the May 4th issue of Cell, MCB researchers Brendan Lilley, Albert Pan and Joshua Sanes report on a molecular cascade that is responsible for establishing the polarity of cortical neurons in the developing brain. [more]

Vicky and Bess, the two rhinoceros sculptures outside the Bio Labs Building, will be celebrating their seventieth birthdays on May 11th, 2007. Afternoon festivities will be held in their honor. Celebrations will be held in the Bio Labs courtyard beginning at 4:00 PM on Friday, May 11th with special guests in attendance. Pizza, birthday cake and beverages will be served. [more]

The recipients of the 2007 Merck Genome-Related Research Awards were honored at a special luncheon Monday, April 9, in Sherman Fairchild. Two postdoctoral awards and four awards for Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) members are presented annually through MCB to support genomics research in FAS. [more]

This publication (authored by DiGiorgio, Carrasco, Siao, Maniatis and Eggan) describes the development of a system based on the in vitro differentiation of mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells bearing a human gene known to cause ALS. In vitro differentiation of these ES cells generated motor neurons and other cell types found in the spinal chord. [more]

Lee et al. recently defined a new role for the inositol polyphosphate IP7, which contains a pyrophosphate group (2 phosphates linked together) on one of the inositol ring positions. They demonstrated that IP7 regulates the activity of a cyclin-CDK-CDK inhibitor complex involved in relaying information about availability of the nutrient inorganic phosphate. [more]

Every year, second year students from the Genetics and Genomics Training Program host a symposium that highlights an area of study that incorporates molecular, cellular, organismic and evolutionary biology. This year, in an effort to provide a fascinating symposium for the broadest of life sciences communities, the symposium committee has selected the ever-interesting world of Sex and Conflict. [more]

Using the neuromuscular junction, an accessible, peripheral synapse between a motoneuron and a muscle fiber, Fox et al. found one explanation for the multiplicity of signals: they act sequentially at distinct developmental stages to pattern the nerve terminal. [more]

Different neurons are tuned to different features, for example some ganglion cells fire when the light dims, others when it brightens. Here we show that a rapid shift in the image on the retina can cause a dramatic change in a neuron’s preferred feature. [more]

On Saturday, April 21, a day-long symposium will be held at Harvard on "New Directions in Quantitative Biology". Sponsored by Harvard’s Division of Life Sciences and hosted by MCB, the Symposium reflects the increasing importance of quantitative approaches in the biological sciences. [more]

Members of the Gaudet and Ploegh labs teamed up and showed that some herpesvirus-encoded cysteine proteases are not as picky as cellular deubiquitinating enzymes, since they indiscriminately cleave most ubiquitin molecules attached to host proteins. To reveal how these enzymes recognize and cleave ubiquitin from proteins, the murine cytomegalovirus cysteine protease was crystallized in complex with a ubiquitin-based suicide inhibitor, and the structure of the complex was determined by x-ray crystallography. [more]

In many of the bacteria that swim by rotating helical flagella, the flagellum itself is not a simple, passive propeller. The flagellar filament (a homopolymer of tens of thousands of flagellin monomers, accounting for more than 99% of the flagellar length) can adopt several helical shapes of varying pitch, radius and handedness. Although a single polymorphic form dominates during forward swimming, other variants are commonly seen during tumbling. [more]

Previous work from our lab identified two functionally redundant kinases called TBK1 and IKKe, which are activated by virus infection, and phosphorylate transcription factors required for IFN-b gene expression.  To determine whether IKKe has a unique function in the innate immune response, we knocked out the mouse IKKe gene, and homozygous mutant mice were infected with flu virus.  We found that the mutant mice produced normal levels of IFN-b, and they mounted a normal adaptive immune response to the virus.  However, they succumbed to the infection at much lower doses than wild type mice. [more]

Takao Hensch thinks of himself as a bridge-builder, and since his work spans continents, languages, and schools on the Harvard campus, it’s easy to see why. A neuroscientist and new MCB professor, Hensch comes to Harvard from the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan. At the age of 40, he’s already at the top of his field—a pioneer who’s done much to explain how the developing brains of infants and children wire themselves in response to their environments. [more]

On Saturday, March 10, Harvard will host the Microbial Sciences Symposium, a major program open to the public, to be held in the Science Center on the Cambridge campus. Reflecting the convergence of many approaches to microbiological studies, the Symposium "features an exciting line up of speakers from the disciplines of engineering, physics, chemistry, earth and planetary sciences, and bacteriology," notes MCB Professor Richard Losick. [more]

The National Academy of Sciences has announced that Prof. Richard Losick of MCB has been awarded the Selman A. Waksman Award in Microbiology for 2007. The biennial prize recognizes "extraordinary scientific achievement" in the field of microbiology. Prof. Losick was awarded for "discovering alternative bacterial sigma factors and [for] his fundamental contributions to understanding the mechanism of bacterial sporulation." [more]

Catherine Dulac of MCB and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute has been awarded the prestigious Richard Lounsbery Award for 2006. According to the National Academy of Sciences, the award "is given in alternate years to young American and French scientists in recognition of extraordinary scientific achievement in biology and medicine." [more]

The evolution of genes for light emission might have involved either fusion or fission. Thus, the ancestral system may have had two genes, which fused in the Noctiluca lineage but remained separate in the branch leading to the photosynthetic species. Alternatively, based on the more primitive status of Noctiluca, its luciferase gene can be viewed as similar to the ancestral gene in dinoflagellates, which then split in giving rise to L. polyedru. [more]

For MCB Associate Professor David Jeruzalmi, the lure of research lies in the minute molecular engines that drive what he calls the "broad strokes" of biology. Most of biology’s big-picture views have been well defined, he says, but they can also be changed by what scientists learn about their internal features. "And that’s what interests me," he says. "I want to understand how the broad strokes can be changed by the details." [more]