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Presidental Award for 2014 to Andrew Yoo

Andrew Yoo will recieve the Presidential Award from President Obama this year for his discovery of the genetic circuitry underlying chromatin control in the nervous system and then using this new knowledge to reprogram human skin cells to neurons. He is the thrid Crabtree lab graduate to win a Presidential Award. The others were Paul Khavari, now Professor of Medicine at Stanford Medical School and Weidong Wang, now Senior Investigator at the NIH.

Cigal Kadoch Receives Forbes’ 30-under-30 Award

Each year Forbes magazine recognizes the brightist young talents in the US with its 30-under-30 award. Cigal Kadoch was recognized this year as one of this elite group, just as she became a faculty member at Harvard. Cigall did her graduate work as well as her post doctoral fellowship in the Crabtree lab from 2009 to 2013. She discovered that over 20% of all human cancers are caused by mutations in subunits of the SWI/SNF or BAF complex. Furthermore, she discovered a mechanism underlying synovial sarcoma that may lead to new therapies for this untreatable disease.

Forbes

New Way to Build Stronger Bones

A brief report on Monte Winslow’s discovery that slightly shifting the nuclear dwell time of NFATc1 in developing mice results in a drastic increase in bone density. The work, which was published in Developmental Cell suggest that small molecules that inhibit the NFAT export kinases might be useful drugs or at least leads for treatment of osteoporosis. more

BBC News

Lilly Reports Sepsis Drug Passes Advanced Trials

An article covering the use of Protein C for treatment of septic shock. Human Protein C was first cloned by Jorge Plutzky, a student in the Crabtree laboratory, who is now Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard. Protein C is a critical regulator of both the innate immune response and the coagulation pathway. Jerry became interested in it because of its genetically dominant role in human disease. Scientist at Eli Lilly used the clone isolated in the Crabtree laboratory and developed Protein C to a useful drug and demonstrated its effectiveness in treatment of septic shock. It was FDA approved in 2002. It is now the only effective therapy for this disorder and reported to save 50,000 lives per year by Lilly’s CEO, Sidney Taurel. Associated New York Times article.

Wall-Street-Journal-Crabtree-May-10-2006.pdf

NY Times

Gene Therapy Passes Important Tests in Monkeys

An article in the summarizing the use of synthetic ligands for regulated gene therapy in monkeys using the system developed by Stephan Ho and Steve Biggar in the laboratory (Nature 382, 822 1996). The article highlights the studies of Jim Wilson at the University of Penn and Mike Gilman at Ariad.

NY Times

Successful Use of Synthetic Ligands

An article summarizing the successful use of synthetic ligands to activate transcription of EPO in monkeys and mice. The work was done at Ariad in collaboration with Jim Wilson and uses the system for transcriptional activation developed by Steffan Ho (Nature 382, 822 1996)

Wall Street Journal

A Molecule that Switches Genes On and Off

A summary of the development of synthetic ligands or CID’s and their use to activate and inactivate transcription by David Spencer, Steffan Ho and others in the Crabtree and Schreiber labs. Note the shape of the receptors in the diagram used in the article.

NY Times

Conversations in a Cell

More on the discovery of the mechanism of action of CsA and the development of synthetic ligands in the Crabtree and Schreiber labs.

Discovery Magazine

Scientists Decipher Mysterious Process of Signaling in Cells

An article in the Science Section of the New York Times describing the work done in the Crabtree and Schreiber labs that lead to an understanding of the Ca2+/calcineurin/NF-AT signaling pathway and the mechanism of action of cyclosporin A and FK506.

NY Times