News and insights

Subscribe to our newsletter

It’s part of human nature: we look at ourselves in the mirror and see links to the past. “Those bright green eyes?” we think. “Those came from grandma.” “The cleft chin? That’s from dad’s side.” Our instinct, of course, is to attribute notable traits to close relatives – those that we know personally or through family history. The reality, however, is that the genetics that influence our traits – or “phenotypes” – could date back generations. Some may have been introduced into human lineages more than 40,000 years ago.

Researchers from the ӳý and several partnering institutions have taken a closer look at the human genome to learn more about the genetic underpinnings of schizophrenia. In two studies published this week in Nature, scientists analyzed the exomes, or protein-coding regions, of people with schizophrenia and their healthy counterparts, pinpointing the sites of mutations and identifying patterns that reveal clues about the biology underlying the disorder.

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), the ӳý, and Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN) announced today that they have launched a strategic collaboration to jointly discover and validate new therapeutic targets and develop novel therapies for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), a chronic disorder that affects millions worldwide. The MGH-ӳý-Amgen collaboration brings together scientists with expertise in clinical medicine, IBD biology, human genetics, genomic technology, and drug discovery to work together to help create a new world of therapeutic options for IBD patients.

The most comprehensive genetic study to date of the blood cancer multiple myeloma has revealed that the genetic landscape of the disease may be more complicated than previously thought. Through results published in Cancer Cell today, a team of ӳý researchers has shown that an individual patient’s tumor can harbor populations of cancer cells equipped with different mutations. These findings could have therapeutic implications for patients in the future.