News

Whitehead Institute researchers have determined that the planarian flatworm regenerates missing tissues by using pluripotent adult stem cells. Until now, scientists could not determine whether the dividing cells in planarians, called neoblasts, are a mixture of specialized stem cells that each regenerates specific tissues, or if individual neoblasts are pluripotent and able to regenerate all tissues.

A little-studied gene known as notum plays a key role in the planarian’s regeneration decision-making process, according to Whitehead Institute scientists. At head-facing (anterior) wounds, the gene notum acts as a dimmer switch to dampen the Wnt pathway—an ancient signaling circuit that operates in all animals—and promote head regeneration.

The National Academy of Sciences has announced that Whitehead Institute's David Bartel is among 72 new Academy members elected today in recognition of distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

Whitehead Institute scientists report that two proteins once thought to have only supporting roles, are the true “stars” of the kinetochore assembly process in human cells.

Whitehead Institute Director David Page has been named a recipient of the 2011 March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology. The prize honors Page’s groundbreaking body of research on the human Y chromosome.

In a research collaboration blind to affairs of politics, ethnicity, and religion, an international team led by Israeli scientists has identified the genetic cause of a neurological disorder afflicting members of a Palestinian family.

Certain differentiated cells in breast tissue can spontaneously convert to a stem-cell-like state, according to Whitehead Institute researchers. Until now, scientific dogma has stated that differentiation is a one-way path; once cells specialize, they cannot return to the flexible stem-cell state on their own.