<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">======================================</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">MIT Research Digest, December 2008</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">======================================</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">For Immediate Release</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">THURSDAY, DEC. 4, 2008</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Contact: Elizabeth A. Thomson, MIT News Office</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">E: <a href="mailto:thomson@mit.edu">thomson@mit.edu</a>, T: 617-258-5402</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">A monthly tip-sheet for journalists of recent research advances</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Latest research news: <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/research.html">http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/research.html</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">RSS -- research feed: <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/mitresearch-rss.xml">http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/mitresearch-rss.xml</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">IN THIS ISSUE: Roboclam * Backpacks For Cells * Setting The Pace * Efficient Solar Cells * Cutting Greenhouse Emissions * Cells & Vaccination * Making Coal Cleaner * Greenhouse Gas Storage * Asteroids: Early Warning * Tiny Steps * Songbirds & Timing * Important New Catalysts * Stem Cell Challenges * Remodeling Brain Cells * Dna’s Packing Material * Genetic Insights</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">ROBOCLAM</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">The simple razor clam has inspired a new MIT robot that could lead to a “smart” anchor that burrows through the ocean floor to reposition itself and could even reverse, making it easier to recover. The RoboClam is being developed to explore the performance capabilities of clam-inspired digging, as well as to shed light on the behavior of the real animal. “Our original goal was to develop a lightweight anchor that you could set then easily unset, something that’s not possible with conventional devices,” said Anette “Peko” Hosoi, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering whose collaborators on the work are Amos Winter, a graduate student in her lab, and engineers at Bluefin Robotics Corp. Such devices could be useful, for example, as tethers for small robotic submarines that are routinely repositioned to monitor variables like currents and temperature. Further, a device that can burrow into the seabed and be directed to a specific location could also be useful as a detonator for buried underwater mines. Winter presented the team’s latest results at a meeting of the American Physical Society. This work was sponsored by Bluefin, Battelle, and Chevron.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">MORE: <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/roboclam-1125.html">http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/roboclam-1125.html</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">PHOTO AND VIDEO AVAILABLE</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">BACKPACKS FOR CELLS</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">MIT engineers have outfitted cells with tiny “backpacks” that could allow them to deliver chemotherapy agents, diagnose tumors or become building blocks for tissue engineering. Michael Rubner, director of MIT’s Center for Materials Science and Engineering and senior author of a paper on the work that appeared online in Nano Letters, said he believes this is the first time anyone has attached such a synthetic patch to a cell. The polymer backpacks allow researchers to use cells to ferry tiny cargoes and manipulate their movements using magnetic fields. Since each patch covers only a small portion of the cell surface, it does not interfere with the cell’s normal functions or prevent it from interacting with the external environment. “The goal is to perturb the cell as little as possible,” said Robert Cohen, the St. Laurent Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT and an author of the paper. The researchers worked with B and T cells, two types of immune cells that can home to various tissues in the body, including tumors, infection sites, and lymphoid tissues — a trait that could be exploited to achieve targeted drug or vaccine delivery. “The idea is that we use cells as vectors to carry materials to tumors, infection sites or other tissue sites,” said Darrell Irvine, an author of the paper and associate professor of materials science and engineering and biological engineering. Cellular backpacks carrying chemotherapy agents could target tumor cells, while cells equipped with patches carrying imaging agents could help identify tumors by binding to protein markers expressed by cancer cells. The research was funded by the NSF.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">MORE: <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/cellbackpack-1106.html">http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/cellbackpack-1106.html</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">PHOTO AND VIDEO AVAILABLE</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">SETTING THE PACE</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Two pacemakers in the brain work together in harmony to ensure that breathing occurs in a regular rhythm, according to MIT scientists. That cooperation provides critical backup during respiratory stress, from the early trauma of birth to intense exercise and oxygen shortages, said Chi-Sang Poon, principal research scientist at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. “The two-pacemaker system provides robustness and redundancy that protects us against a number of challenges from childhood to adulthood,” said Poon, senior author of a paper on the work appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Abnormities of the two pacemakers may be related to some cases of “crib death” in babies and some forms of central sleep apnea, which can affect premature infants and the elderly, Poon said. Other authors of the paper are from MIT and the University of Toronto. The research was funded by the NIH.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">MORE: <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/respiration-1103.html">http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/respiration-1103.html</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">PHOTO AVAILABLE</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">EFFICIENT SOLAR CELLS</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">New ways of squeezing out greater efficiency from solar photovoltaic cells are emerging from computer simulations and lab tests conducted by a team of physicists and engineers at MIT. Using computer modeling and a variety of advanced chip-manufacturing techniques, they have applied an antireflection coating to the front, and a novel combination of multi-layered reflective coatings and a tightly spaced array of lines — called a diffraction grating — to the backs of ultrathin silicon films to boost the cells’ output by as much as 50 percent. The carefully designed layers deposited on the back of the cell cause the light to bounce around longer inside the thin silicon layer, giving it time to deposit its energy and produce an electric current. Without these coatings, light would just be reflected back out into the surrounding air, said Peter Bermel, a postdoctoral researcher in MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics who has been working on the project. “It’s critical to ensure that any light that enters the layer travels through a long path in the silicon,” Bermel said. “The issue is how far does light have to travel [in the silicon] before there’s a high probability of being absorbed” and knocking loose electrons to produce an electric current. The team reported the first reduction to practice of their findings on Dec. 2 at the Materials Research Society’s annual meeting. A paper on their findings has been accepted for publication in Applied Physics Letters. Funding was provided by the Thomas Lord Chair in Materials Science and Engineering, the MIT-MIST Initiative, the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center Program of the NSF and the Army Research Office through the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">MORE: <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/solar-efficiency-1126.html">http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/solar-efficiency-1126.html</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">PHOTO AVAILABLE</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">CUTTING GREENHOUSE EMISSIONS</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Researchers at MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research have produced a report concerning key design issues of proposed “cap-and-trade” programs that are under consideration in the United States as a way of curbing greenhouse gas emissions. The first contribution of the three-part study found that, based on an examination of the European Union’s system and of similar U.S. programs for other emissions, such a program can indeed be effective in reducing emissions without having a significant economic impact. “The European experience confirms much of what has been learned from similar U.S. systems for other emissions, namely, that cap-and-trade systems can be constructed, that markets emerge to facilitate trading, that emissions are reduced efficiently, and that the effects on affected industries are less than predicted,” said A. Denny Ellerman, the study’s lead author and a senior lecturer in the MIT Sloan School of Management. The study found that the most controversial aspect of the European program was how to allocate the permitted emissions levels to different producers. Initial free allocation of allowances, they found, was the necessary price for gaining political acceptance, as it has been in U.S. systems. Over time, the clearly established trend in the E.U. is to phase out the free allocation of permits in favor of auctioning them. The study was funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">MORE: <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/capandtrade-1113.html">http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/capandtrade-1113.html</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">PHOTO AVAILABLE</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">CELLS & VACCINATION</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">MIT engineers have painted the most detailed portrait yet of how single cells from the immune system respond to vaccination. The work, reported in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could help researchers develop and test new vaccines for diseases including HIV, fungal infections and antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. “We’re building a toolkit which we can use to look at how an immune response develops successfully. Then we aim to use that information for reverse engineering vaccines that would invoke that same type of response,” said J. Christopher Love, assistant professor of chemical engineering and senior author of the paper. Coauthors of the paper are from MIT, Gordon College, and the Whitehead Institute. The research was funded by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, the NIH, and the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">MORE: <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/vaccination-1103.html">http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/vaccination-1103.html</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">PHOTO AVAILABLE</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">MAKING COAL CLEANER</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Construction of new coal-fired power plants in the United States is in danger of coming to a standstill, partly due to the high cost of the requirement — whether existing or anticipated — to capture all emissions of carbon dioxide, an important greenhouse gas. But an MIT analysis suggests an intermediate step that could get construction moving again, allowing the nation to fend off growing electricity shortages using our most-abundant, least-expensive fuel while also reducing emissions. Instead of capturing all of its CO2 emissions, plants could capture a significant fraction of those emissions with less costly changes in plant design and operation, the MIT analysis shows. “Our approach — ‘partial capture’ — can get CO2 emissions from coal-burning plants down to emissions levels of natural gas power plants,” said Ashleigh Hildebrand, a graduate student in chemical engineering and the Technology and Policy Program. “Policies such as California’s Emissions Performance Standards could be met by coal plants using partial capture rather than having to rely solely on natural gas, which is increasingly imported and subject to high and volatile prices.” Hildebrand presented her findings at the 9th International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies (GHGT-9). Her co-author is Howard J. Herzog, principal research engineer at the MIT Energy Initiative.The GHGT-9 conference was organized by MIT in collaboration with the IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme, with sponsorship from the DOE.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">MORE: <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/ecofriendly-coal-1117.html">http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/ecofriendly-coal-1117.html</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">PHOTO AVAILABLE</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">GREENHOUSE GAS STORAGE</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">To prevent global warming, researchers and policymakers are exploring a variety of options to significantly cut the amount of carbon dioxide that reaches the atmosphere. One possible approach involves capturing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide at the source — an electric power plant, for example — and then injecting them underground. While theoretically promising, the technique has never been tested in a full-scale industrial operation. But now MIT engineers have come up with a new software tool to determine how much CO2 can be sequestered safely in geological formations. The work was reported at the 9th International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies (GHGT-9). This research was supported by the McClelland Fund, administered by the MIT Energy Initiative, and by the Reed Research Fund. The GHGT-9 conference was organized by MIT in collaboration with the IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme, with sponsorship from the DOE.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">MORE: <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/bury-greenhouse-1117.html">http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/bury-greenhouse-1117.html</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">PHOTO AND GRAPHIC AVAILABLE</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">ASTEROIDS: EARLY WARNING</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Silicon chips developed at MIT Lincoln Laboratory are at the heart of a new survey telescope that will soon provide a more than fivefold improvement in scientists’ ability to detect asteroids and comets that could someday pose a threat to the planet. The prototype telescope installed on Haleakala mountain, Maui, will begin operation this month. It will feature the world’s largest and most advanced digital camera, using the Lincoln Laboratory silicon chips. This telescope is the first of four that will be housed together in one dome. The system, called Pan-STARRS (for Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System), is being developed at the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy. The project was funded by the Air Force Research Laboratory.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">MORE: <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/panstarrs-1118.html">http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/panstarrs-1118.html</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">PHOTO AVAILABLE</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">TINY STEPS</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">MIT researchers have shown how a cell motor protein exerts the force to move, enabling functions such as cell division. Kinesin, a motor protein that also carries neurotransmitters, “walks” along cellular beams known as microtubules. For the first time, the MIT team has shown at a molecular level how kinesin generates the force needed to step along the microtubules. The researchers, led by Matthew Lang, associate professor of biological and mechanical engineering, report their findings in an online early issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Because kinesin is involved in organizing the machinery of cell division, understanding how it works could one day be useful in developing therapies for diseases involving out-of-control cell division, such as cancer. This work is a close collaboration with researchers at Harvard and Texas A&M. The research was funded by the NIH and the Army Research Office Institute of Collaborative Biotechnologies.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">MORE: <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/cell-motor-1124.html">http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/cell-motor-1124.html</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">GRAPHIC AVAILABLE</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">SONGBIRDS & TIMING</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">As anyone who watched the Olympics can appreciate, timing matters when it comes to complex sequential actions. It can make a difference between a perfect handspring and a fall, for instance. But what controls that timing? MIT scientists are closing in on the brain regions responsible, thanks to some technical advances and some help from songbirds. “All our movements, from talking and walking to acrobatics or piano playing, are sequential behaviors,” explained Michale Fee, an investigator in the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT and an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. “But we haven’t had the necessary tools to understand how timing is generated within the brain.” Now Fee and colleagues report in Nature a new method for altering the speed of brain activity. And using that technique, “we think we have found the clock that controls the timing of the bird’s song,” Fee said. This study was funded by the NIH and the Human Frontiers Science Project.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">MORE: <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/brain-timing-1112.html">http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/brain-timing-1112.html</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">PHOTO AND GRAPHIC AVAILABLE</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">IMPORTANT NEW CATALYSTS</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">A new class of exceptionally effective chemical catalysts that promote the powerful olefin metathesis reaction has been discovered by a team of Boston College and MIT scientists, opening up a vast new scientific platform to researchers in medicine, biology and materials. The new catalysts can be easily prepared and possess unique features never before utilized by chemists, according to findings from a team led by professors Amir Hoveyda of BC and Richard Schrock of MIT. The team's findings are reported in the journal Nature. "In order for chemists to gain access to molecules that can enhance the quality of human life, we need reliable, highly efficient, selective and environmentally friendly chemical reactions," said Hoveyda. "Discovering catalysts that promote these transformations is one of the great challenges of modern chemistry." Catalytic olefin metathesis transforms simple molecules into complex ones. But a chief challenge has been developing catalysts to this organic chemical reaction that are practical and offer exceptional selectivity for a significantly broader range of reactions. Schrock, a professor of chemistry at MIT who won the 2005 Nobel Prize in chemistry, said the unprecedented level of control the new class of catalysts provides will advance research across multiple fields. The work was sponsored by the NIH.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">MORE: <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/catalyst-1116.html">http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/catalyst-1116.html</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">PHOTO AVAILABLE</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">STEM CELL CHALLENGES</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Using adult stem cells to replace neurons lost because of brain damage and disease could be more difficult than previously thought, according to MIT researchers, because newly formed brain cells receive messages before they are capable of sending them. The work, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has implications on the treatment of conditions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Scientists have long speculated that replacing neurons damaged by neurological disease, brain injury or spinal-cord trauma would be an efficient way to reverse the negative effects of those conditions. But Carlos E. Lois, of the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, found that adding new neurons to existing circuits would be akin to trying to integrate a new memory card into a running computer. "Most likely, the computer software will crash because of the sudden addition of a new part to the hardware," said Lois, who is also an assistant professor of neuroscience in the departments of brain and cognitive sciences and biology. While new parts can be added to an off-line computer, the brain can never be completely shut down. "The addition and elimination of connections of new neurons would be disruptive to the existing brain circuit," he said. This work is supported by the David and Lucille Packard Foundation.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">MORE: <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/neurons-1121.html">http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/neurons-1121.html</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">PHOTO AND GRAPHIC AVAILABLE</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">REMODELING BRAIN CELLS</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Overturning a century of prevailing thought, scientists are finding that neurons in the adult brain can remodel their connections. In work reported in an online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Elly Nedivi, associate professor of neurobiology at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, and colleagues found that a type of neuron implicated in autism spectrum disorders remodels itself in a strip of brain tissue only as thick as four sheets of tissue paper at the upper border of cortical layer 2. “This work is particularly exciting because it sheds new light on the potential flexibility of cerebral cortex circuitry and architecture in higher-level brain regions that contribute to perception and cognition,” said Nedivi, who is also affiliated with MIT’s departments of brain and cognitive sciences and biology. “Our goal is to extract clues regarding the contribution of structural remodeling to long-term adult brain plasticity — the brain’s ability to change in response to input from the environment — and what allows or limits this plasticity.” A researcher from Ben-Gurion University in Israel was also involved in this work, which is supported by the National Eye Institute.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">MORE: <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/brain-remodel-1124.html">http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/brain-remodel-1124.html</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">DNA’S PACKING MATERIAL</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">MIT biologists have discovered that the organization of DNA’s packing material plays a critical role in directing stem cells to become different types of adult cells. The work, published in the journal Cell, could also shed light on the possible role of DNA packaging in cancer development. Led by Laurie Boyer, assistant professor of biology at MIT, the researchers examined the role of chromatin — the structure that forms when DNA is wound around a core of proteins called histones. “We’re particularly interested in how chromatin structure influences gene expression and ultimately cell fate,” Boyer said. “We hope the studies we are doing can lead to better understanding of development as well as certain diseases.” Boyer’s coauthors are from MIT and the Whitehead Institute. The research was funded by the Dutch Cancer Foundation, the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation, the NIH and Genzyme Corp.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">MORE: <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/stemcell-1106.html">http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/stemcell-1106.html</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">GENETIC INSIGHTS</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Scientists have long known that it’s possible for one gene to produce slightly different forms of the same protein by skipping or including certain sequences from the messenger RNA. Now, an MIT team has shown that this phenomenon, known as alternative splicing, is both far more prevalent and varies more between tissues than was previously believed. Nearly all human genes, about 94 percent, generate more than one form of their protein products, the team reports in an online edition of Nature. Scientists’ previous estimates ranged from a few percent 10 years ago to 50-plus percent more recently. “A decade ago, alternative splicing of a gene was considered unusual, exotic … but it turns out that’s not true at all — it’s a nearly universal feature of human genes,” said Christopher Burge, senior author of the paper and the Whitehead Career Development Associate Professor of Biology and Biological Engineering at MIT. Burge and his colleagues also found that in most cases the mRNA produced depends on the tissue where the gene is expressed. The work paves the way for future studies into the role of alternative proteins in specific tissues, including cancer cells.Other authors are from the Whitehead Institute, the National Center for Genome Resources, and Illumina. The research was funded by the NIH, the Knut & Alice Wallenberg Foundation, and the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">MORE: <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/splice-1102.html">http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/splice-1102.html</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">--END--</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div> </div></body></html>