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A planarian’s guide to growing a new head
Development and regeneration

The lab of Whitehead Institute Member Peter Reddien describes how planarians use the Delta-Notch signaling pathway to adjust the spatial pattern and relative numbers of neurons and glia at a given location. This allows the organisms to restore large portions of their nervous system following injury.

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New ways of thinking about brain research

Whitehead Institute researchers are making discoveries that are helping us rethink what we know about the brain and paving the way for therapies to treat some of the most challenging brain disorders and diseases.

Rejuvenation

Researchers at Whitehead Institute are breathing new life into the study of rejuvenation, the ability of cells to repair and replenish tissues — and potentially learning how to slow or reverse the changes our cells experience over time. 

Postdoc Profiles

Whitehead Institute is dedicated to training the next generation of scientists, especially postdocs. Get to know a few of these remarkable scientists through these profiles. 

Naturally occurring mechanism of cancer drug-resistance may itself be a treatment target
Cancer

The use of proteasome inhibitors to treat cancer has been greatly limited by the ability of cancer cells to develop resistance to these drugs. But Whitehead Institute researchers have found a mechanism underlying this resistance--a mechanism that naturally occurs in many diverse cancer types and that may expose vulnerabilities to drugs that spur the natural cell-death process.

Scientists engineer gene pathway to grow brain organoids with surface folding
Technology and methods
Genetics + Genomics

Whitehead researchers provide insight into a specific gene pathway that appears to regulate the growth, structure, and organization of the human cortex. They also demonstrate that 3D human cerebral organoids--miniature, lab-grown versions of specific brain structures--can be effective in modeling the molecular, cellular, and anatomical processes of human brain development. And they suggest a new path for identifying the cells affected by Zika virus.

Susan Lindquist, accomplished and beloved scientist, has died at age 67
Awards + Announcements

Susan Lee Lindquist, Ph.D., Member and former Director of Whitehead Institute, and one of the nation’s most lauded scientists, yesterday succumbed to cancer. Her nearly 40-year career was defined by intellectually courageous, boundary-defying research and a passion for nurturing new generations of scientific talent. 

“Sue has meant so much to Whitehead as an institution of science, and as a community of scientists, and her passing leaves us diminished in so many ways,” reflects David C. Page, M.D., Director of Whitehead Institute and Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). “She was a risk-taker and an innovator. She believed that if we were not reaching for things beyond our grasp, we were not doing our job as researchers; if we were not constantly striving for that which we could only imagine, we were not fulfilling our obligations to society as scientists.”

Revising the meaning of “prion”
Neurodegenerative disease
Protein form and function

Prions are infamous for causing Creutzfeld-Jakob disease, fatal familial insomnia, and bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow’s disease. Yet, it’s not likely that’s all they’re good for. Using an unbiased screen in yeast, a team of Whitehead Institute and Stanford University scientists have identified dozens of prion-like proteins that could change the defining characteristics of these unusual proteins. 

Derived neural immune cells enable new facet of neurodegeneration research
Whitehead Culture
Neurodegenerative disease
Neurobiology

Whitehead Institute scientists have devised a protocol for pushing human pluripotent stem cells to become microglia—the specialized immune cells that maintain the brain and care for it after injury. Microglia play an important role in neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, and studying these cells has been very difficult until now.

Inherited parental methylation shifts over time, may have functional effects in the brain and other tissues
Epigenetics
Genetics + Genomics

Inherited methylation—a form of epigenetic regulation passed down from parents to offspring—is far more dynamic than previously thought and may contribute to changes in the brain and other tissues over time. This finding by Whitehead Institute scientists challenges current understandings of gene regulation via methylation, from development through adulthood.