Scientists unveil tools for rewriting the code of life
MIT and Harvard researchers have developed technologies that could be used to rewrite the genetic code of a living cell, allowing them to make large-scale edits to the cell’s genome. Such technology...
View ArticleMaterials research in the Information Age
New materials are crucial to building a clean energy economy — for everything from batteries to photovoltaics to lighter weight vehicles — but today the development cycle is too slow: around 18 years...
View ArticleSeeing cancer in three dimensions
One of the hallmarks of cancer cells is that certain regions of their DNA tend to get duplicated many times, while others are deleted. Often those genetic alterations help the cells become more...
View ArticleGetting to the root of genetics
For Manolis Kellis, a deep interest in biology arose partly from an immersion in multiple languages. Kellis ’99, MEng ’99, PhD ’03, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer...
View ArticleGenetic 911: Cells’ emergency systems revealed
Toxic chemicals wreak havoc on cells, damaging DNA and other critical molecules. A new study from researchers at MIT and the University at Albany reveals how a molecular emergency-response system...
View ArticleSearching genomic data faster
In 2001, the Human Genome Project and Celera Genomics announced that after 10 years of work at a cost of some $400 million, they had completed a draft sequence of the human genome. Today, sequencing a...
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Turning on key enzyme blocks tumor formation
Biologists found that boosting the activity of pyruvate kinase, the enzyme seen here, can prevent tumors from growing.Image: Dimitris Anastasiou, Will Israelsen and Andrea Howell Unlike ordinary cells,...
View ArticleResearchers identify biochemical functions for most of the human genome
Only about 1 percent of the human genome contains gene regions that code for proteins, raising the question of what the rest of the DNA is doing. Scientists have now begun to discover the answer: About...
View ArticleEvolution: It’s all in how you splice it
When genes were first discovered, the canonical view was that each gene encodes a unique protein. However, biologists later found that segments of genes can be combined in different ways, giving rise...
View ArticleEditing the genome with high precision
Researchers at MIT, the Broad Institute and Rockefeller University have developed a new technique for precisely altering the genomes of living cells by adding or deleting genes. The researchers say the...
View ArticleCardiac development needs more than protein-coding genes
When the human genome was sequenced, biologists were surprised to find that very little of the genome — less than 3 percent — corresponds to protein-coding genes. What, they wondered, was all the rest...
View ArticleReading DNA, backward and forward
MIT biologists have discovered a mechanism that allows cells to read their own DNA in the correct direction and prevents them from copying most of the so-called “junk DNA” that makes up long stretches...
View ArticleResearch update: Genome editing becomes more accurate
Earlier this year, MIT researchers developed a way to easily and efficiently edit the genomes of living cells. Now, the researchers have discovered key factors that influence the accuracy of the...
View ArticleControlling genes with light
Although human cells have an estimated 20,000 genes, only a fraction of those are turned on at any given time, depending on the cell’s needs — which can change by the minute or hour. To find out what...
View ArticleSpeeding up gene discovery
Since the completion of the Human Genome Project, which identified nearly 20,000 protein-coding genes, scientists have been trying to decipher the roles of those genes. A new approach developed at MIT,...
View ArticleUnusual suspects
DNA stores the information of life, proteins provide the action, and in between sits elusive RNA, which serves both as a database of information and as a molecular machine. RNA is more flexible than...
View ArticleResearch reveals structure of key CRISPR complex
Researchers from MIT and the Broad Institute have teamed up with colleagues from the University of Tokyo to form the first high-definition picture of the Cas9 complex — a key part of the CRISPR-Cas...
View ArticleBroad Institute awarded first patent for CRISPR-Cas9 system
The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard recently announced that it has been issued a patent for a CRISPR-Cas9 system that's enabling scientists to modify genes and better understand the biology of...
View ArticleIt’s in the genes — but whose?
In 2003, when the human genome had been sequenced, many people expected a welter of new therapies to follow, as biologists identified the genes associated with particular diseases.But the process that...
View ArticleKellis to lead MIT team in new phase of GTEx project to elucidate basis of...
The National Institutes of Health have awarded eight grants as part of a new phase of the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project to study the role that genomic variation plays in modulating gene...
View ArticleFast modeling of cancer mutations
Sequencing the genomes of tumor cells has revealed thousands of genetic mutations linked with cancer. However, sifting through this deluge of information to figure out which of these mutations actually...
View ArticleScientists seek insight into Parkinson’s, addiction by tracking gene...
Two MIT neuroscientists have been awarded grants from the G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Foundation to screen for genes that could help brain cells withstand Parkinson’s disease and to map how gene...
View ArticleNew CRISPR-based map ties every human gene to its function
The Human Genome Project was an ambitious initiative to sequence every piece of human DNA. The project drew together collaborators from research institutions around the world, including MIT's Whitehead...
View ArticleWith fractured genomes, Alzheimer’s neurons call for help
A new study by researchers in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT provides evidence from both mouse models and postmortem human tissue of a direct link between two problems that emerge...
View ArticleAtlas of human brain blood vessels highlights changes in Alzheimer’s disease
Your brain is powered by 400 miles of blood vessels that provide nutrients, clear out waste products, and form a tight protective barrier — the blood-brain barrier — that controls which molecules can...
View ArticleIt takes three to tango: transcription factors bind DNA, protein, and RNA
Transcription factors could be the Swiss Army knives of gene regulation; they are versatile proteins containing multiple specialized regions. On one end they have a region that can bind to DNA. On the...
View ArticleMaking genetic prediction models more inclusive
While any two human genomes are about 99.9 percent identical, genetic variation in the remaining 0.1 percent plays an important role in shaping human diversity, including a person’s risk for developing...
View ArticleSearch algorithm reveals nearly 200 new kinds of CRISPR systems
Microbial sequence databases contain a wealth of information about enzymes and other molecules that could be adapted for biotechnology. But these databases have grown so large in recent years that...
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