In this episode of AudioHelicase, Whitehead Institute Member Pulin Li talks about how her lab engineers cells in Petri dishes to communicate with each other and form patterns, recreating processes seen in embryo development—and how this work could eventually inform efforts to grow tissues in the lab.

Produced by Conor Gearin

Music: Pierce Murphy, “Versailles” (CC-BY 4.0)

In this episode of AudioHelicase, Whitehead Institute Member Ankur Jain discusses how RNA can clump in cells and the diseases, such as Huntington’s and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), that are associated with these aggregations.

In this episode of AudioHelicase, Whitehead Institute Member Iain Cheeseman discusses how his work on the kinetochore provides a window into cell division and what happens when this vital cellular function goes awry.

In this episode of AudioHelicase, Whitehead Institute Member Mary Gehring discusses how her research on the plant Arabidopsis thaliana reveals how gene regulation can be passed from one generation to the next.

From his discovery of the first oncogene and tumor suppressor, to his work revealing critical aspects of the mutational basis of cancer, and more recently its metastatic behavior, Whitehead Founding Member Robert Weinberg’s work has been foundational in our understanding of cancer biology.

Whitehead Member Sebastian Lourido studies a group of parasites called the Apicomplexa. These single-celled organisms are among the most common pathogens and are capable of causing devastating diseases in humans and animals, including toxoplasmosis, malaria, and infant diarrhea. Lourido’s laboratory is investigating in particular how the Apicomplexan Toxoplasma gondii  invades host cells and establishes its site of replication. The work holds great promise for exposing treatable vulnerabilities in the parasite—and in the closely related Plasmodium parasites, which cause malaria and contribute to more than half a million deaths each year.

NASA Astronaut and Former Whitehead Fellow Kathleen “Kate” Rubins sits down with Whitehead’s Director David Page to discuss her journey from studying pox viruses to sequencing DNA in space.

As a graduate student, Whitehead Member David Sabatini identified mTOR, the keystone molecule in a cellular pathway connecting nutrition, metabolism, and aging. In this episode, he discusses how the molecule was first discovered and what his lab is currently working on, including mTOR’s role in cancer, growth, and metabolism.