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You all know we at the Ó³»­´«Ã½ are passionate about our science. But news circulated today in the lobby of our Cambridge Center facilities that we are also doing our part in protecting the environment.

Our landlord announced that the complex of buildings including Cambridge Center posted some impressive recycling numbers. We're a few months away from America Recycles Day on November 15 but we thought we'd share the news. 

From January through June 2010, we and our neighbors at CC recycled 101.92 tons out of 308.14 tons of waste; an impressive 33% recycling rate.

Yeast is as common in the lab as it is in a bakery. It’s a very useful organism because it grows quickly, is easy to culture, and its genetics have been studied extensively. But its very simplicity means it is also has limits – and those limits prompted Ó³»­´«Ã½ core member Aviv Regev and her colleagues to think about developing another model for studying cell circuitry.

Regev’s work, which she outlined in a recent talk at the Functional Genomics Data Society in Boston, focuses in part on our cells’ ability to respond to changes.

The Ó³»­´«Ã½ is home to the DNAtrium, a museum of interactive exhibits showcasing the fascinating world of genomic research, new scientific instruments and the researchers who are driving forward progress in biology and medicine.

The focus of last night’s Midsummer Nights' Science Lecture at the Ó³»­´«Ã½ lecture was diabetes –a disease that affects more than 171 million people worldwide. Bridget Wagner, a group leader in pancreatic biology and metabolic disease in the Chemical Biology Program at the Ó³»­´«Ã½, spoke about the past and present of diabetes, as well as her group’s progress towards identifying small molecules that may someday be used to control diabetes.

Since I work at a world-class institution where I encounter genetics and genomics research daily, it is only right to acknowledge the birthday of Gregor Johann Mendel (1852-1884), the Austrian friar whose puttering in the garden led to more than just the day’s edibles.