Congratulations Dr. Mootha named to 2022 Highly Cited Researchers
More than 70 researchers from across Mass General Brigham have been named to this year’s Highly Cited Researchers™ list from Clarivate. The annual list uses both quantitative and qualitative analysis to identify individuals from across the globe who have demonstrated significant and broad influence in their chosen field or fields of research.
The preliminary list is drawn from the papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and publication year in the Web of Science™ citation index over the past decade. The list also identifies the research institutions and regions where the researchers are based. The methodology that determines the “who’s who” of influential researchers draws on the data and analysis performed by bibliometric experts and data scientists at the Institute for Scientific Information™ at Clarivate.
Margarete Diaz Cuadros receives an International Birnstiel Award from the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology
One of six winners to receive the 2022 International Birnstiel Awards from the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology, presented annually to the top PhD students of molecular life science disciplines. This year, nominations for the award came from 100 institutions around the world.
Congratulations to Jeannie Lee for being one of the 2022 MGB Disruptive Dozen at the World Innovative Forum
The biology of the X chromosome, one of two sex-determining chromosomes in humans, is unique. Females carry two copies of the X chromosome, yet one copy is randomly selected for inactivation in cells throughout the body. This unusual biology could hold the key to much-needed treatments for a group of rare yet devastating neurodevelopmental disorders, which predominantly affect females. Scientists are devising a strategy to reawaken the dormant X chromosome, an approach that could yield effective treatments for these serious disorders.
More about the 2022 Disruptive Dozen, on the World Medical Innovation Forum website
Congratulations to Fred Ausubel, a newly minted Pioneer Member of the American Society of Plant Biologists.
Vamsi Mootha elected to National Academy of Medicine
Vamsi K. Mootha, MD, professor of systems biology, Harvard Medical School; investigator, Massachusetts General Hospital; investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; and member, Broad Institute was elected for transforming the field of mitochondrial biology by creatively combining modern genomics with classical bioenergetics.
Radhika Subramanian wins 2022 Motility and Cytoskeleton Early Career Award
This award recognizes significant contributions to the field of motility and cytoskeletal research and boosts the visibility of early career investigators. The award will be presented during the 2022 annual subgroup symposia at the Biophysical Society Annual Meeting, followed by a presentation from Radhika.
Radhika Subramanian receives 2022 Motility and Cytoskeleton Early Career Award from the Biophysical Society
Radhika Subramanian, PhD, of the MGH Department of Molecular Biology, has received a 2022 Motility and Cytoskeleton Early Career Award from the Biophysical Society. This award recognizes significant contributions to the field of motility and cytoskeletal research and boosts the visibility of early career investigators. The award will be presented during the 2022 annual subgroup symposia at the Biophysical Society Annual Meeting followed by a presentation from the Subramanian.
Carlos Rivera-Alvarez selected as a 2021 Pew Latin American Fellow in the Biomedical Sciences
This program in the Biomedical Sciences provides support for young scientists from Latin America to receive postdoctoral training in the United States, giving them an opportunity to further their scientific knowledge by promoting exchange and collaboration between investigators in the United States and Latin America. The fellows will work under the mentorship of prominent biomedical scientists, including alumni of the Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences.
Jeannie Lee to receive the Cozzarelli Prize
The editorial board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has selected six papers published by the journal in 2020 to receive the Cozzarelli Prize, an award that recognizes outstanding contributions to the scientific disciplines represented by the National Academy of Sciences. Jeannie T. Lee, MD, PhD, and several current and past members of her laboratory in the Department of Molecular Biology, authored the winning paper in the Biological Sciences category, about their finding that DNA long considered “junk” actually performs a vital function in handling biological stress. Surprisingly, RNA made from the repetitive element B2 SINE turns out to be a ribozyme that cuts itself during stress. Authors of the six winning papers, chosen from among 3,600 contenders, were honored at a virtual awards ceremony in April.
Gary Ruvkun elected to the American Philosophical Society
Gary Ruvkun, PhD, investigator in the Department of Molecular Biology and the Center for Computational and Integrative Biology, has been elected to the American Philosophical Society (APS). Election to APS honors extraordinary accomplishments in all fields and is unusual among learned societies because its membership is comprised of top scholars from a wide variety of academic disciplines.
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Jack Szostak elected Fellow of the Royal Society
The Royal Society is a Fellowship of many of the world's most eminent scientists and is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence. Szostak's current research interests focus on the laboratory synthesis of self-replicating systems and the origin of life.
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Bob Kingston elected to the National Academy of Medicine
Bob Kingston, Chief of the Department of Molecular Biology, has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, in recognition of "contributions to understanding the role of nucleosomes in transcriptional regulations".
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Lauren Orefice Wins 2019 Eppendorf & Science Prize for Neurobiology
Lauren's breakthrough work demonstrated that genetic defects in the peripheral sensory neurons of mice can give rise to a phenotype closely resembling Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This allowed for further exploration of the biology of ASD and potential therapeutic approaches, such as alteration of sensory input to ameliorate the effects of ASD.
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Rodrigo Aguilar, PhD has been selected as a Pew Latin American Fellow
Rodrigo Aguilar, PhD, Research Fellow in the Lee Laboratory in the Department of Molecular Biology, has been selected as a Pew Latin American Fellow. The Pew Latin American Fellows Program has supported more than 200 outstanding biomedical scholars from Central and South America to advance research in their countries. Fellows pursue postdoctoral studies with distinguished mentors in the United States.
Radhika Subramanian, PhD has been selected as a 2016 Pew Scholar.
The Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences supports promising early-career scientists in the health sciences – particularly young researchers with innovative approaches and ideas.
Gary Ruvkun awarded the 2016 March of Dimes and Richard B. Johnston, Jr., MD Prize in Developmental Biology
Gary Ruvkun, PhD, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and Victor R. Ambros, PhD, of the University of Massachusetts Medical School and have been awarded the 2016 March of Dimes and Richard B. Johnston, Jr., MD Prize in Developmental Biology. The Prize recognizes their pioneering co-discovery of an unanticipated world of the tiniest genes, microRNAs (or miRNAs), and the mechanism by which they regulate their targets.
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Robert Kingston Elected to the National Academy of Sciences
Bob Kingston, Chief of the Department of Molecular Biology, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Click here to read more.
Jeannie Lee Wins the 2016 Lurie Prize
This is a new award that is highly prestigious and given to one younger scientist a year. The last two awardees were Karl Deisseroth for opto-genetics and Jennifer Doudna for CRISPR, so very good company for Jeannie! The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) has selected Jeannie T. Lee, M.D., Ph.D., as the 2016 winner of the Lurie Prize in Biomedical Sciences for uncovering the functions of long, noncoding RNA (lncRNA) in epigenetic regulation. Her work has accelerated the understanding of mechanisms driving epigenetic regulation, which involves changes in gene function without changing the DNA sequence.
Vamsi Mootha wins the King Faisal International Prize in Biology
This award is given to those that have "carried out and published an originial scientific research on the prize's topic, with major benefits to humanit." Since 1983, the King Faisal prize has been awarded to a series of renowned scientists, including those who would later win the Nobel Prize.
Vamsi Mootha is a Professor of Systems Biology and Medicine, at the MGH Department of Molecular Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, and an Investigator at The Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Official AnnouncementMore on the King Faisal PrizeList of Previous Winners
Radhika Subramanian receives Smith Family Award for Excellence in Biomedical Research.
This Smith Family Foundation award will support work in Dr. Subramanian's lab towards understanding the fundamental mechanisms underlying cell-to-cell communication during embryonic development. The mission of the Smith Family Foundation, which has been supporting groundbreaking medical research through the Smith Family Awards Program for Excellence in Biomedical Research for the past 23 years, is to launch the careers of newly independent biomedical researchers with the ultimate goal of achieving medical breakthroughs.
Vamsi Mootha receives MGH Excellence in Action Award
Five MGHers received an Excellence in Action Award from Peter Slavin, MD, MGH president. Recipients include Jaime Belkind-Gerson, MD, MSc, medical director of the Neurogastroenterology Program at MassGeneral Hospital for Children; Eric Grabowski, MD, SCD, director of the MGH Comprehensive Hemophilia Treatment Center; Vamsi Mootha, MD, director of the Mootha Lab in the Department of Molecular Biology; Katherine Sims, MD,pediatric neurologist; and Jolan Walter, MD, PhD, director of the Pediatric Immunodeficiency Program. They were presented with the award July 30 for successfully treating a child with a complex case of mitochondrial disease. Parents of the 12-year-old child were so pleased with their child’s care that they wrote to Slavin to share their positive experience, calling the MGH specialists the “best team of doctors in the world.”
Kai Mao named Damon Runyon Fellow
The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on supporting innovative early career researchers, named Kai Mao, PhD, of the Department of Molecular Biology, as one of 15 new Damon Runyon Fellows at its fall Fellowship Award Committee review. The recipients of this prestigious, four-year award are outstanding postdoctoral scientists conducting basic and translational cancer research in the laboratories of leading senior investigators across the country. The fellowship encourages the nation's most promising young scientists to pursue careers in cancer research by providing them with independent funding to work on innovative projects. Mao, with his sponsor Gary Ruvkun, PhD, is studying the cell’s cytoskeleton, which provides the physical structure and shape of a cell. The cytoskeleton is an attractive target for cancer chemotherapy because of its central function in mitosis or cell division, but these chemotherapeutic agents have very high toxicity. He hypothesizes that the next generation of chemotherapy will benefit from the inhibition of these toxin response pathways.
Jeannie Lee elected to the National Academy of Sciences
This is a great honor for Jeannie Lee , and wonderful news for our Department. Jeannie joined our Department as an Assistant Professor in 1997. She has been a leader in the field of X chromosome inactivation and a pioneer in discovering roles for long non-coding RNAs. Her lab discovered Tsix, a key lncRNA involved in regulating X inactivation, discovered DNA elements key to this process, and has done important work in in elucidating the roles for the YY1 protein and the PRC2 complex in this process. The work coming out of Jeannie’s lab is directly relevant to human disease, including fragile X syndrome and Rett syndrome. Jeannie has been the recipient of many honors and awards, and her election to the NAS is richly deserved.
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