Ó³»´«Ã½ researcher receives prestigious scholarship
Bradley Bernstein, an associate member of the Ó³»´«Ã½ and an assistant professor in the department of pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, has received a Charles E. Culpeper Scholarship in Medical Science. The scholarship is one of three given this year to physician scientists nationwide and is awarded by Partnership for Cures, a charity dedicated to accelerating the discovery of cures for life-threatening diseases.
Bernstein's research focuses on chromatin — the protein scaffold coupled to DNA — and how changes in chromatin contribute to mammalian development and human cancer. With the Culpeper Scholarship, he will receive $100,000 per year for three years to support this work.
"The Culpeper Scholarship will allow us to apply high-throughput genomic tools to identify defects in chromatin structure that underlie leukemia and possibly other human cancers," said Bernstein.
Bernstein and his colleagues at the Ó³»´«Ã½ have developed high-throughput techniques for mapping histone modifications onto the human and mouse genomes. His laboratory is using this technique and others to investigate the epigenetic mechanisms that underlie the pluripotency of stem cells and to test whether similar mechanisms also underlie malignancy.
The Culpeper Scholarships in Medical Science, established in 1988, provide funding to "nurture the career development of exceptionally promising physician scientists as they transition to becoming independent researchers at the best academic medical centers," according to Partnership for Cures, which administers the program. The Culpeper Scholarships are jointly funded by Partnership for Cures, Goldman Philanthropic Partnerships and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The program has awarded $20 million to promising scientists at 59 institutions since its inception.
This marks the third Culpeper Scholarship that has been awarded to a Ó³»´«Ã½ researcher. Associate member Vamsi Mootha won last year for "Functional Genomic Dissection of Human Mitochondrial Disorders," and founding member David Altshuler, who directs the Ó³»´«Ã½'s program in Medical and Population Genetics, won in 2002 for "Genomic Approaches to the Genetics of Diabetes and Response to Hypoglycemic Medications."
