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Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), Harvard Medical School (HMS), the ӳý of MIT and Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and University of Chicago report findings demonstrating how genetic variations among healthy, young individuals can influence immune cell function. Many of those variants are also genetic risk factors for common diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, and multiple sclerosis later in life, offering new insight into disease pathology.

The ӳý of MIT and Harvard today announced the appointment of two new members to its senior leadership team, Chief Operating Officer Samantha Singer and Chief Communications Officer Clare Midgley. They join another recent addition, Chief Development Officer Justine Levin-Allerhand, who was recruited to the ӳý last year. All three are members of the institute’s executive leadership team, where they drive and implement strategies for operations, communications, and development efforts to meet the ӳý’s institutional goals.

CRISPR in action

The ӳý today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued the first patent for an engineered CRISPR-Cas9 system that is enabling scientists to modify genes and better understand the biology of living cells and organisms. The institute applied for the patent in concert with the January 3, 2013 publication in Science (Cong, et al.) that described the use of the CRISPR enzyme, Cas9, for genome editing.

What: Glioblastoma, the most common and most aggressive form of brain cancer in adults, remains effectively incurable. Evidence suggests that “stem-like” cells help drive this difficult-to-treat disease. These cells may possess properties that give them the ability to resist treatment and drive cancer’s growth, but pinpointing them and understanding the circuitry that makes them behave the way they do has been a major challenge.