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CD8+ T cell differentiation into effector and memory T cells is critical for tumor immunity, pathogen response, and vaccine effectiveness, but to date researchers have not been able to use standard methods to study the factors involved in the process without first extensively manipulating naive T cells ex vivo, making the biology difficult to understand. ӳý researchers Nick Haining, Glenn Cowley, David Root, Arlene Sharpe, and colleagues, including first author Jernej Godec of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, describe overcoming this obstacle in a recent .

Christopher Burge and Yarden Katz of the ӳý and MIT were co-senior author and co-first author respectively of a recent that was featured in Science magazine’s “” section. Their team found that Musashi proteins, a family of RNA-binding proteins, play a role in regulating cell state transitions in cancer – particularly in an aggressive form of breast cancer. The study was also covered in .

In a recent study , ӳý-affiliated researchers Ron Do, Daniel Balick, Heng Li, Shamil Sunyaev, and David Reich challenged the theory that natural selection has been less effective removing deleterious genetic mutations in non-Africans versus West Africans over the course of human evolution. The team used simulations to show that observed mutation patterns that have been interpreted as evidence supporting the theory are not likely to reflect changes in the effectiveness of selection after the populations diverged, but are instead likely to be driven by other factors of population genetics.

Contrary to popular belief, tumors don’t develop undisturbed. They undergo almost constant immune attack — which, as a result, changes their mutational composition. But just how this immune response is initiated and its effect on different tumor types has remained largely unexplored…until now. For the first time, a team of researchers from the ӳý — including Mike Rooney, Sachet Shukla, Cathy Wu, Gad Getz, and Nir Hacohen — has performed a systematic survey of how 18 different tumor types induce and adapt to immune responses.