作者:
McCarthy, AliceMain Text
“In June 2003
the scientific and medical communities at MIT Harvard University and its affiliated hospitals and the Whitehead Institute banded together as collaborating partners to form the Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute based in Cambridge MA. The Broad Institute established with initial funding from a $100 million philanthropic donation from the Los Angeles-based Broad family was primarily viewed as a marriage between the Whitehead Institute's Center for Genome Research (WICGR) and the Harvard Institute of Chemistry and Cell Biology (ICCB). Eli Broad founder and chairman of AIG SunAmerica Inc. explained “the purpose of the Broad Institute is to create a new type of research institute to build on the accomplishments of the human genome project and to move to clinical applications to both prevent and cure diseases.”
Every Thursday morning we meet with perhaps 20 faculty members and 100 other researchers to discuss what we're all doing and should be doing next. -David Altschuler
This paragraph was written five years ago when the Broad Institute was in its very earliest days as a life science research community (McCarthy 2005). Since that time “the Broad” as it's known has kept true to Eli Broad's vision having attracted a talented group of researchers faculty trainees and professional staff. This 1600 person research community known internally as “Broadies” includes faculty staff and students from throughout the MIT and Harvard biomedical research communities and beyond with collaborations spanning over a hundred private and public institutions in more than 40 countries worldwide.
“What is special about the Broad is that we have people from Harvard MIT and the Harvard hospitals come together and work on problems of shared interest that could not be solved in their own individuals labs” explains David Altshuler M.D. Ph.D. Deputy Director and one of the Broad's six core faculty members. “These problems require expertise beyond any one principal investigator and in
Engineers seek to use biological design principles to manipulate information and import new functionality to synthetic devices. Such devices inspired by natural systems could, in turn, play a crucial role in allowing ...
详细信息
ISBN:
(纸本)9781424438372
Engineers seek to use biological design principles to manipulate information and import new functionality to synthetic devices. Such devices inspired by natural systems could, in turn, play a crucial role in allowing biologists to explore the effects of physical transport and extreme conditions of temperature and pH on reaction systems. For example, engineered reaction containers can be physically and chemically defined to control the flux of molecules of different sizes and charge. The design and testing of such a container is described here. It has a volume of 19 pL with defined slits of 200 nm. The device successfully contained DNA and protein molecules and is evaluated for carrying out cell-free protein synthesis. The effect of DNA concentration and slit size on protein yield is discussed.
The rapid growth of the biomedical literature and genomic information presents a major challenge for determining the functional relationships among genes. In this study, we develop a Web-based bioinformatics software ...
详细信息
The rapid growth of the biomedical literature and genomic information presents a major challenge for determining the functional relationships among genes. In this study, we develop a Web-based bioinformatics software environment called FAUN or feature annotation using nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) to facilitate both the discovery and classification of functional relationships among genes. Both the computational complexity and parameterization of NMF for processing gene sets are discussed. We tested FAUN on three manually constructed gene document collections, and then used it to analyze several microarray-derived gene sets obtained from studies of the developing cerebellum in normal and mutant mice. FAUN provides utilities for collaborative knowledge discovery and identification of new gene relationships from text streams and repositories (e.g., MEDLINE). It is particularly useful for the validation and analysis of gene associations suggested by microarray experimentation.
Mechano-active scaffolds were fabricated from very elastic poly(lactide-co-carprolactone) by a gel-pressing method. The scaffolds were seeded with bone marrow stromal cells and the continuous compressive deformation w...
详细信息
Mechano-active scaffolds were fabricated from very elastic poly(lactide-co-carprolactone) by a gel-pressing method. The scaffolds were seeded with bone marrow stromal cells and the continuous compressive deformation was applied to cell-polymer constructs in the chondrogenic media. Then, they were implanted in nude mice subcutaneously to evaluate for the effect of dynamic compression for regeneration of cartilage. From the biochemical analyses, chondrogenic differentiation was sustained and enhanced significantly and chondral extracellular matrix was increased through mechanical stimulation. Histological analyses showed that implants stimulated mechanically formed mature and well-developed cartilaginous tissue, as evidenced by bone marrow derived chondrocytes within lacunae. Consequently, the periodic application of dynamic compression can encourage bone marrow stromal cells to differentiation to chondrogenic lineage and to maintain their phenotypes.
Proteomic techniques are fast becoming the main method for qualitative and quantitative determination of the protein content in biological systems. Despite notable advances, efficient and accurate analysis of high thr...
详细信息
Expression levels of anther-expressed genes in rice were estimated by plaque hybridization. A total of 33 cDNAs, isolated randomly from an anther-enriched cDNA library, were used as probes to hybridize both anther and...
Expression levels of anther-expressed genes in rice were estimated by plaque hybridization. A total of 33 cDNAs, isolated randomly from an anther-enriched cDNA library, were used as probes to hybridize both anther and leaf cDNAs. The expression level of individual cDNA clones was then estimated by counting the number of plaques hybridized to each probe. Based on abundance patterns that appeared in both anther and leaf cDNA libraries, the clones were classified into three groups. This classification showed that the majority of the clones (one group) exhibited expression in both cDNA libraries at almost equal frequency. The other two groups showed either low or no expression in the leaf cDNA library. Among the cDNA clones,RA1003 (detected only in the anther cDNA library) was selected and further characterized at the molecular level. Consistent with the results of the plaque hybridization experiment, northern blot analysis also revealed no gene expression in vegetative organs, leaves, or roots. However, expression was high in the flowers, especially in the anthers. Detailed molecular studies of the gene are also described and discussed here.
暂无评论