Ó³»­´«Ã½

What: Researchers from the Ó³»­´«Ã½, the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI), and Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) used an eclectic combination of cutting-edge technologies to determine what’s going wrong at the molecular level in the neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Their research, published online this week in two separate Cell journals, sheds light on the mechanisms that lead to the disease and highlights potential targets for new treatments.

This week, Ó³»­´«Ã½ scientific director of vertebrate genome biology Kerstin Lindblad-Toh became one of the first recipients of a new long-term research grant from the Swedish Research Council. The program, known as , provides Swedish scientists with 10 years of flexible funding to support ambitious, long-term projects. Lindblad-Toh is one of only nine researchers selected to receive the inaugural award.

What: For patients with T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL), a rare form of blood cancer that mainly affects children and young adults, drug resistance poses a major threat to a promising treatment option currently in clinical trials. About half of patients with T-ALL have mutations in NOTCH1, but drugs that target this gene have so far produced only short-lived effects: at first, the cancer seems to respond, but in a short period of time, T-ALL returns.

What: Members of the Ó³»­´«Ã½â€™s Proteomics Platform were the lead authors of a recent paper that outlined best practices for developing and publishing studies involving one of the field’s signature tools: targeted mass spectrometry (MS).

Heard of Chagas disease? Chances are, unless you live in Central or South America where the disease affects an estimated 8 million people, you probably haven’t.