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Can you patent a nose?

That was one of a myriad of provocative questions at a recent panel called “Gene Patenting: Balancing Access and Innovation” co-sponsored by the ӳ����ý and the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. (That’s myriad with a lower-case ‘m’ – not to be confused with the controversy that recently burst into the news in a court case known as ACLU v. Myriad Genetics. The more formal name is The Association for Molecular Pathology, et al. v. The United States Patent and Trademark Office, et al.)

Here on the blog last month we introduced you to the roundworm C. elegans, a scientific star among worms. At the ӳ����ý, a team of scientists led by computational biologist Carolina Wahlby is now helping C. elegans take center stage with new tools for high-throughput analysis of worm images.

A recent episode of PBS's NOVA series features the ӳ����ý and researcher Elinor Karlsson. The program, , offers a scientific view of how dogs evolved from wolves, how their species is uniquely connected to ours, and what researchers are learning about human disease by studying dog genomes.

This Friday, November 19, at 7:30 pm, come to the ӳ����ý auditorium at 7 Cambridge Center for “Darwin and the Debate over Human Origins,” a free and public symposium organized by the Darwin Bicentennial Project and Science of the Eye. The event marks the 151st anniversary of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and will feature talks by Darwin scholar and author Janet Browne, ӳ����ý associate member David Reich, and other distinguished speakers from Harvard and MIT.

Your immune system is quite clever. It can sense when bacteria, viruses, or pathogens are invading, distinguish among them, and respond accordingly. But an overactive or improperly functioning immune system can lead to a variety of problems such as auto-immune diseases like lupus or diseases related to inflammation, such as hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis). Nir Hacohen and his colleagues at the ӳ����ý and Massachusetts General Hospital want to find out more about the intricacies of how the immune system works and how it relates to these diseases.