News

Settling a hotly debated issue in the field of cloning, a team of researchers from the Whitehead Institute and the University of Hawaii has shown that the egg can reset the developmental clock of a female adult cell, first reversing and then faithfully reproducing an early genetic event called X-inactivation. X-inactivation is a process by which one of two X chromosomes in female embryos is randomly silenced during development.

Whitehead members Peter S. Kim and Robert A. Weinberg are among the sixty new members elected this year to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), a unit of the National Academy of Sciences. New members are elected based on their major contributions to health and medicine. Kim and Weinberg join Whitehead members Gerald R. Fink and Eric S. Lander, who are current members of the IOM.

Researchers at the Whitehead Institute and The Sanger Centre report their contributions to the methodology and progress of The SNP Consortium, an international effort to assemble and release the first high-resolution map of common variations in human DNA called single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs. SNPs are the bedrock of human genetics: they can be used to track inheritance of any gene, contribute to the traits that make us unique, and underlie our susceptibilities to common diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. It is also believed that SNPs help explain why individuals respond differently to drugs.

The Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research has received a two-year, $5.25 million grant from the National Science Foundation to sequence the genome of the common laboratory fungus Neurospora crassa and to deposit the information in public databases.

Researchers at the Whitehead Institute have shown that a common genetic variant increases the risk of contracting type 2 diabetes. The variant, a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in a gene called PPAR gamma, is carried by billions of people and helps to explain why some people are more likely than others to contract diabetes. The study, published in the September issue of Nature Genetics, has several implications: it offers new insights into the underlying causes of diabetes and more generally provides a blueprint for analyzing the role of SNPs in disease.

For more than half a century, the field of human genetics has harbored a gender bias about the relative contribution of males versus females to human evolution. Since 1947, when biologist J.B.S Haldane suggested that the rate of genetic mutation is much higher in the male germ line than in the female germ line, geneticists have credited males with much of the evolutionary changes that occurred in the 5 million years since human ancestors departed from chimpanzees.

The Human Genome Project (HGP) and The SNP Consortium today announced plans to generate a new set of human DNA sequence information that will contribute 125,000 to 250,000 validated and useful genetic markers known as single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs. The information also will enhance the HGP working draft sequence of the human genome.

The Human Genome Project public consortium today announced that it has assembled a working draft of the sequence of the human genome — the genetic blueprint for a human being. This major milestone involved two tasks: placing large fragments of DNA in the proper order to cover all of the human chromosomes, and determining the DNA sequence of these fragments.

The Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research today announced a new program for Computational Biology, a scientific discipline regarded by researchers as critical to advancing gene research. The Computational Biology Fellows Program at the Whitehead Institute, with funding and scientific support from Pfizer Central Research, will begin with two Fellows, who will conduct independent research at the interface of biology, computer science, and mathematics.

In a promising new advance in vaccine development, scientists have identified a protein fragment that is exceptionally potent in eliciting an immune response against infected cells and cancer cells. When scientists injected a vaccine containing this fragment into mice lacking a healthy immune system, the animals were able to mount a cellular immune response despite their compromised immune system.