Cancer

Stuart Schreiber, a core member of the Ó³»­´«Ã½ of MIT and Harvard and a Professor of Chemistry at Harvard, has been awarded the 2016 Wolf Prize in chemistry. The prize, considered among the most prestigious in the scientific community, recognizes Schreiber for his work in chemical biology and for the use of small molecules as probes to uncover novel cellular mechanisms at the root of human health and disease.

Researchers from the Boston area, Mexico, and Norway have completed a comprehensive genomic analysis of cervical cancer in two patient populations. The study identified recurrent genetic mutations not previously found in cervical cancer, including at least one for which targeted treatments have been approved for other forms of cancer. The findings also shed light on the role human papillomavirus (HPV) plays in the development of cervical cancer.

Project Achilles is a systematic effort aimed at identifying and cataloging genetic vulnerabilities across hundreds of genomically characterized cancer cell lines. The project uses a genome-wide shRNA library to silence individual genes and identify those genes that affect cell survival. Large-scale functional screening of cancer cell lines...