Institute News: Announcements

Feng Zhang elected to National Academy of Sciences

Anne Trafton |

Feng Zhang has been elected to join the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a prestigious, non-profit society of distinguished scholars that was established through an Act of Congress signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. Zhang is the Patricia and James Poitras ’63 Professor in Neuroscience at MIT, an associate professor in the departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Biological Engineering, an investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and a core member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Scientists are elected to the National Academy of Sciences by members of the organization as recognition of their outstanding contributions to research.

“Because it comes from the scientific community, election to the National Academy of Sciences is a very special honor,” says Zhang, “and I’m grateful to all of my colleagues for the recognition and support.”

Zhang has revolutionized research across the life sciences by developing and sharing a number of powerful molecular biology tools, most notably, genome engineering tools based on the microbial CRISPR-Cas9 system. The simplicity and precision of Cas9 has led to its widespread adoption by researchers around the world. Indeed, the Zhang lab has shared more than 49,000 plasmids and reagents with more than 2,300 institutions across 62 countries through the non-profit plasmid repository Addgene.

Zhang continues to pioneer CRISPR-based technologies. For example, Zhang and his colleagues discovered new CRISPR systems that use a single enzyme to target RNA, rather than DNA. They have engineered these systems to achieve precise editing of single bases of RNA, enabling a wide range of applications in research, therapeutics, and biotechnology. Recently, he and his team also reported a highly sensitive nucleic acid detection system based on the CRISPR enzyme Cas13 that can be used in the field for monitoring pathogens and other molecular diagnostic applications.

Zhang has long shown a keen eye for recognizing the potential of transformative technologies and developing robust tools with broad utility. As a graduate student in Karl Diesseroth’s group at Stanford, he contributed to the development of optogenetics, a light-based technology that allows scientists to both track neurons and causally test outcomes of neuronal activity. Zhang also created an efficient system for reprogramming TAL effector proteins (TALEs) to specifically recognize and modulate target genes.

“Feng Zhang is unusually young to be elected into the National Academy of Science, which attests to the tremendous impact he is having on the field even at an early stage of his career, “ says Robert Desimone, director of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT.

This year the NAS, an organization that includes over 500 Nobel Laureates, elected 84 new members from across disciplines. The mission of the organization is to provide sound, objective advice on science to the nation, and to further the cause of science and technology in America. Four MIT professors were elected this year, with Amy Finkelstein (recognized for contributions to economics) as well as Mehran Karder and Xiao-Gang Wen (for their research in the realm of physics) also becoming members of the Academy.

The formal induction ceremony for new NAS members will be held at the Academy’s annual meeting in Washington D.C. next spring.

McGovern Institute awards 2018 Scolnick Prize to David Anderson

by Julie Pryor |

The McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT announced today that David J. Anderson of Caltech is the winner of the 2018 Edward M. Scolnick Prize in Neuroscience. He was awarded the prize for his contributions to the isolation and characterization of neural stem cells and for his research on neural circuits that control emotional behaviors in animal models. The Scolnick Prize is awarded annually by the McGovern Institute to recognize outstanding advances in any field of neuroscience.

“We congratulate David Anderson on being selected for this award,” says Robert Desimone, director of the McGovern Institute and chair of the selection committee. “His work has provided fundamental insights into neural development and the structure and function of neural circuits.”

Anderson is the Seymour Benzer Professor of Biology at Caltech, where he has been on the faculty since 1986, and is currently the director of the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience. He is also an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He received his PhD in cell biology from Rockefeller University, where he trained with the late Günter Blobel, and he received his postdoctoral training in molecular biology with Richard Axel at Columbia University.

For the first 20 years of his career, Anderson focused his research on the biology of neural stem cells and was the first to isolate a multipotent stem cell from the mammalian nervous system. He subsequently identified growth factors and master transcriptional regulators that control their differentiation into neurons and glial cells. Anderson also made the unexpected and fundamental discovery that arteries and veins are genetically distinct even before the heart begins to beat. Combining this discovery with his interest in neural development, Anderson went on to contribute to the expanding field of vessel identity and the study of molecular cross-talk between developing nerves and blood vessels.

More recently, Anderson has shifted his focus from neural development to the study of neural circuits that control emotional behaviors, such as fear, anxiety, and aggression, in animal models. Anderson has employed various technologies for neural circuit manipulation including optogenetics, pharmacogenetics, electrophysiology, in vivo imaging, and quantitative behavior analysis using machine vision-based approaches. He developed and applied powerful genetic methods to identify and manipulate cells and circuits involved in emotional behaviors in mice — including ways to inactivate neurons reversibly and to trace their synaptic targets. In addition to this work on vertebrate neural circuitry, Anderson mounted a parallel inquiry that dissects the genes and circuits underlying aggressive behavior in the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster, and has become an international leader in this rapidly developing field.

Among his many honors and awards, Anderson is a Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize recipient, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Anderson also played a key role in the foundation of the Allen Institute for Brain Sciences and the Allen Brain Atlas, a comprehensive open-source atlas of gene expression in the mouse brain.

Anderson will deliver the Scolnick Prize lecture at the McGovern Institute on Friday, Sept. 21 at 4 p.m. in the Singleton Auditorium of MIT’s Brain and Cognitive Sciences Complex (Room 46-3002). The event is free and open to the public.

Institute launches the MIT Intelligence Quest

Anne Trafton |

MIT today announced the launch of the MIT Intelligence Quest, an initiative to discover the foundations of human intelligence and drive the development of technological tools that can positively influence virtually every aspect of society.

The announcement was first made in a letter MIT President L. Rafael Reif sent to the Institute community.

At a time of rapid advances in intelligence research across many disciplines, the Intelligence Quest will encourage researchers to investigate the societal implications of their work as they pursue hard problems lying beyond the current horizon of what is known.

Some of these advances may be foundational in nature, involving new insight into human intelligence, and new methods to allow machines to learn effectively. Others may be practical tools for use in a wide array of research endeavors, such as disease diagnosis, drug discovery, materials and manufacturing design, automated systems, synthetic biology, and finance.

“Today we set out to answer two big questions, says President Reif. “How does human intelligence work, in engineering terms? And how can we use that deep grasp of human intelligence to build wiser and more useful machines, to the benefit of society?”

MIT Intelligence Quest: The Core and The Bridge

MIT is poised to lead this work through two linked entities within MIT Intelligence Quest. One of them, “The Core,” will advance the science and engineering of both human and machine intelligence. A key output of this work will be machine-learning algorithms. At the same time, MIT Intelligence Quest seeks to advance our understanding of human intelligence by using insights from computer science.

The second entity, “The Bridge” will be dedicated to the application of MIT discoveries in natural and artificial intelligence to all disciplines, and it will host state-of-the-art tools from industry and research labs worldwide.

The Bridge will provide a variety of assets to the MIT community, including intelligence technologies, platforms, and infrastructure; education for students, faculty, and staff about AI tools; rich and unique data sets; technical support; and specialized hardware.

Along with developing and advancing the technologies of intelligence, MIT Intelligence Quest researchers will also investigate the societal and ethical implications of advanced analytical and predictive tools. There are already active projects and groups at the Institute investigating autonomous systems, media and information quality, labor markets and the work of the future, innovation and the digital economy, and the role of AI in the legal system.

In all its activities, MIT Intelligence Quest is intended to take advantage of — and strengthen — the Institute’s culture of collaboration. MIT Intelligence Quest will connect and amplify existing excellence across labs and centers already engaged in intelligence research. It will also establish shared, central spaces conducive to group work, and its resources will directly support research.

“Our quest is meant to power world-changing possibilities,” says Anantha Chandrakasan, dean of the MIT School of Engineering and Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Chandrakasan, in collaboration with Provost Martin Schmidt and all four of MIT’s other school deans, has led the development and establishment of MIT Intelligence Quest.

“We imagine preventing deaths from cancer by using deep learning for early detection and personalized treatment,” Chandrakasan continues. “We imagine artificial intelligence in sync with, complementing, and assisting our own intelligence. And we imagine every scientist and engineer having access to human-intelligence-inspired algorithms that open new avenues of discovery in their fields. Researchers across our campus want to push the boundaries of what’s possible.”

Engaging energetically with partners

In order to power MIT Intelligence Quest and achieve results that are consistent with its ambitions, the Institute will raise financial support through corporate sponsorship and philanthropic giving.

MIT Intelligence Quest will build on the model that was established with the MIT–IBM Watson AI Lab, which was announced in September 2017. MIT researchers will collaborate with each other and with industry on challenges that range in scale from the very broad to the very specific.

“In the short time since we began our collaboration with IBM, the lab has garnered tremendous interest inside and outside MIT, and it will be a vital part of MIT Intelligence Quest,” says President Reif.

John E. Kelly III, IBM senior vice president for cognitive solutions and research, says, “To take on the world’s greatest challenges and seize its biggest opportunities, we need to rapidly advance both AI technology and our understanding of human intelligence. Building on decades of collaboration — including our extensive joint MIT–IBM Watson AI Lab — IBM and MIT will together shape a new agenda for intelligence research and its applications. We are proud to be a cornerstone of this expanded initiative.”

MIT will seek to establish additional entities within MIT Intelligence Quest, in partnership with corporate and philanthropic organizations.

Why MIT

MIT has been on the frontier of intelligence research since the 1950s, when pioneers Marvin Minsky and John McCarthy helped establish the field of artificial intelligence.

MIT now has over 200 principal investigators whose research bears directly on intelligence. Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences (BCS) — along with the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory — collaborate on a range of projects. MIT is also home to the National Science Foundation–funded center for Brains, Minds and Machines (CBMM) — the only national center of its kind.

Four years ago, MIT launched the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS) with a mission promoting data science, particularly in the context of social systems. It is  anticipated that faculty and students from IDSS will play a critical role in this initiative.

Faculty from across the Institute will participate in the initiative, including researchers in the Media Lab, the Operations Research Center, the Sloan School of Management, the School of Architecture and Planning, and the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences.

“Our quest will amount to a journey taken together by all five schools at MIT,” says Provost Schmidt. “Success will rest on a shared sense of purpose and a mix of contributions from a wide variety of disciplines. I’m excited by the new thinking we can help unlock.”

At the heart of MIT Intelligence Quest will be collaboration among researchers in human and artificial intelligence.

“To revolutionize the field of artificial intelligence, we should continue to look to the roots of intelligence: the brain,” says James DiCarlo, department head and Peter de Florez Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. “By working with engineers and artificial intelligence researchers, human intelligence researchers can build models of the brain systems that produce intelligent behavior. The time is now, as model building at the scale of those brain systems is now possible. Discovering how the brain works in the language of engineers will not only lead to transformative AI — it will also illuminate entirely new ways to repair, educate, and augment our own minds.”

Daniela Rus, the Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, and director of CSAIL, agrees. MIT researchers, she says, “have contributed pioneering and visionary solutions for intelligence since the beginning of the field, and are excited to make big leaps to understand human intelligence and to engineer significantly more capable intelligent machines. Understanding intelligence will give us the knowledge to understand ourselves and to create machines that will support us with cognitive and physical work.”

David Siegel, who earned a PhD in computer science at MIT in 1991 pursuing research at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and who is a member of the MIT Corporation and an advisor to the MIT Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines, has been integral to the vision and formation of MIT Intelligence Quest and will continue to help shape the effort. “Understanding human intelligence is one of the greatest scientific challenges,” he says, “one that helps us understand who we are while meaningfully advancing the field of artificial intelligence.” Siegel is co-chairman and a founder of Two Sigma Investments, LP.

The fruits of research

MIT Intelligence Quest will thus provide a platform for long-term research, encouraging the foundational advances of the future. At the same time, MIT professors and researchers may develop technologies with near-term value, leading to new kinds of collaborations with existing companies — and to new companies.

Some such entrepreneurial efforts could be supported by The Engine, an Institute initiative launched in October 2016 to support startup companies pursuing particularly ambitious goals.

Other innovations stemming from MIT Intelligence Quest could be absorbed into the innovation ecosystem surrounding the Institute — in Kendall Square, Cambridge, and the Boston metropolitan area. MIT is located in close proximity to a world-leading nexus of biotechnology and medical-device research and development, as well as a cluster of leading-edge technology firms that study and deploy machine intelligence.

MIT also has roots in centers of innovation elsewhere in the United States and around the world, through faculty research projects, institutional and industry collaborations, and the activities and leadership of its alumni. MIT Intelligence Quest will seek to connect to innovative companies and individuals who share MIT’s passion for work in intelligence.

Eric Schmidt, former executive chairman of Alphabet, has helped MIT form the vision for MIT Intelligence Quest. “Imagine the good that can be done by putting novel machine-learning tools in the hands of those who can make great use of them,” he says. “MIT Intelligence Quest can become a fount of exciting new capabilities.”

“I am thrilled by today’s news,” says President Reif. “Drawing on MIT’s deep strengths and signature values, culture, and history, MIT Intelligence Quest promises to make important contributions to understanding the nature of intelligence, and to harnessing it to make a better world.”

“MIT is placing a bet,” he says, “on the central importance of intelligence research to meeting the needs of humanity.”

Ten researchers from MIT and Broad receive NIH Director’s Awards

Anne Trafton |

The High-Risk, High-Reward Research (HRHR) program, supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Common Fund, has awarded 86 grants to scientists with unconventional approaches to major challenges in biomedical and behavioral research. Ten of the awardees are affiliated with MIT and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

The NIH typically supports research projects, not individual scientists, but the HRHR program identifies specific researchers with innovative ideas to address gaps in biomedical research. The program issues four types of awards annually — the Pioneer Award, the New Innovator Award, the Transformative Research Award and the Early Independence Award — to “high-caliber investigators whose ideas stretch the boundaries of our scientific knowledge.”

Four researchers who are affiliated with either MIT or the Broad Institute received this year’s New Innovator Awards, which support “unusually innovative research” from early career investigators. They are:

  • Paul Blainey, an MIT assistant professor of biological engineering and a core member of the Broad Institute, is an expert in microanalysis systems for studies of individual molecules and cells. The award will fund the establishment a new technology that enables advanced readout from living cells.
  • Kevin Esvelt, an associate professor of media arts and sciences at MIT’s Media Lab, invents new ways to study and influence the evolution of ecosystems. Esvelt plans to use the NIH grant to develop powerful “daisy drive” systems for more precise genetic alterations of wild organisms. Such an intervention has the potential to serve as a powerful weapon against malaria, Zika, Lyme disease, and many other infectious diseases.
  • Evan Macosko is an associate member of the Broad Institute who develops molecular techniques to more deeply understand the function of cellular specialization in the nervous system. Macosko’s award will fund a novel technology, Slide-seq, which enables genome-wide expression analysis of brain tissue sections at single-cell resolution.
  • Gabriela Schlau-Cohen, an MIT assistant professor of chemistry, combines tools from chemistry, optics, biology, and microscopy to develop new approaches to study the dynamics of biological systems. Her award will be used to fund the development of a new nanometer-distance assay that directly accesses protein motion with unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution under physiological conditions.

Recipients of the Early Independence Award include three Broad Institute Fellows. The award recognizes “exceptional junior scientists” with an opportunity to skip traditional postdoctoral training and move immediately into independent research positions.

  • Ahmed Badran is a Broad Institute Fellow who studies the function of ribosomes and the control of protein synthesis. Ribosomes are important targets for antibiotics, and the NIH award will support the development of a new technology platform for probing ribosome function within living cells.
  • Fei Chen, a Broad Institute Fellow who is also a research affiliate at MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research, has pioneered novel molecular and microscopy tools to illuminate biological pathways and function. He will use one of these tools, expansion microscopy, to explore the molecular basis of glioblastomas, an aggressive form of brain cancer.
  • Hilary Finucane, a Broad Institute Fellow who recently received her PhD from MIT’s Department of Mathematics, develops computational methods for analyzing biological data. She plans to develop methods to analyze large-scale genomic data to identify disease-relevant cell types and tissues, a necessary first step for understanding molecular mechanisms of disease.

Among the recipients of the NIH’s Pioneer Awards are Kay Tye, an assistant professor of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT and a member of MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, and Feng Zhang, the James and Patricia Poitras ’63 Professor in Neuroscience, an associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences and biological engineering at MIT, a core member of the Broad Institute, and an investigator at MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research. Recipients of this award are challenged to pursue “groundbreaking, high-impact approaches to a broad area of biomedical or behavioral science. Tye, who studies the brain mechanisms underlying emotion and behavior, will use her award to look at the neural representation of social homeostasis and social rank. Zhang, who pioneered the gene-editing technology known as CRISPR, plans to develop a suite of tools designed to achieve precise genome surgery for repairing disease-causing changes in DNA.

Ed Boyden, an associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences and biological engineering at MIT, and a member of MIT’s Media Lab and McGovern Institute for Brain Research, is a recipient of the Transformative Research Award. This award promotes “cross-cutting, interdisciplinary approaches that could potentially create or challenge existing paradigms.” Boyden, who develops new strategies for understanding and engineering brain circuits, will use the grant to develop high-speed 3-D imaging of neural activity.

This year, the NIH issued a total of 12 Pioneer Awards, 55 New Innovator Awards, 8 Transformative Research Awards, and 11 Early Independence Awards. The awards total $263 million and represent contributions from the NIH Common Fund; National Institute of General Medical Sciences; National Institute of Mental Health; National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health; and National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research.

“I continually point to this program as an example of the creative and revolutionary research NIH supports,” said NIH Director Francis S. Collins. “The quality of the investigators and the impact their research has on the biomedical field is extraordinary.”

Feng Zhang Wins the 2017 Blavatnik National Award for Young Scientists

Anne Trafton |

The Blavatnik Family Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences today announced the 2017 Laureates of the Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists. Starting with a pool of 308 nominees – the most promising scientific researchers aged 42 years and younger nominated by America’s top academic and research institutions – a distinguished jury first narrowed their selections to 30 Finalists, and then to three outstanding Laureates, one each from the disciplines of Life Sciences, Chemistry and Physical Sciences & Engineering. Each Laureate will receive $250,000 – the largest unrestricted award of its kind for early career scientists and engineers. This year’s Blavatnik National Laureates are:

Feng Zhang, PhD, Core Member, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Associate Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Biomedical Engineering, MIT; Robertson Investigator, New York Stem Cell Foundation; James and Patricia Poitras ’63 Professor in Neuroscience, McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT. Dr. Zhang is being recognized for his role in developing the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing system and demonstrating pioneering uses in mammalian cells, and for his development of revolutionary technologies in neuroscience.

Melanie S. Sanford, PhD, Moses Gomberg Distinguished University Professor and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Chemistry, University of Michigan. Dr. Sanford is being celebrated for developing simpler chemical approaches – with less environmental impact – to the synthesis of molecules that have applications ranging from carbon dioxide recycling to drug discovery.

Yi Cui, PhD, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Photon Science and Chemistry, Stanford University and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Dr. Cui is being honored for his technological innovations in the use of nanomaterials for environmental protection and the development of sustainable energy sources.

“The work of these three brilliant Laureates demonstrates the exceptional science being performed at America’s premiere research institutions and the discoveries that will make the lives of future generations immeasurably better,” said Len Blavatnik, Founder and Chairman of Access Industries, head of the Blavatnik Family Foundation, and an Academy Board Governor.

“Each of our 2017 National Laureates is shifting paradigms in areas that profoundly affect the way we tackle the health of our population and our planet — improved ways to store energy, “greener” drug and fuel production, and novel tools to correct disease-causing genetic mutations,” said Ellis Rubinstein, President and CEO of the Academy and Chair of the Awards’ Scientific Advisory Council. “Recognition programs like the Blavatnik Awards provide incentives and resources for rising stars, and help them to continue their important work. We look forward to learning where their innovations and future discoveries will take us in the years ahead.”

The annual Blavatnik Awards, established in 2007 by the Blavatnik Family Foundation and administered by the New York Academy of Sciences, recognize exceptional young researchers who will drive the next generation of innovation by answering today’s most complex and intriguing scientific questions.

McGovern Institute awards 2017 Scolnick Prize to Catherine Dulac

by Charles Jennings |

The McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT announced today that Catherine Dulac of Harvard University is the winner of the 2017 Edward M. Scolnick Prize in Neuroscience. She was awarded the prize for her contributions to the understanding of how pheromones control brain function and behavior and the characterization of neuronal circuits underlying sex-specific behaviors. The Scolnick Prize is awarded annually by the McGovern Institute to recognize outstanding advances in any field of neuroscience.

Dulac is the Higgins Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University, where she served as Department Chair from 2007-2013. She is also an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She received her PhD from Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, where she studied mechanisms of neural crest development with Nicole le Douarin at the College de France. She moved to the US in 1992 as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Richard Axel at Columbia University, and joined the Harvard faculty in 1996.

Catherine DulacDulac is best known for her discovery of pheromone receptors and downstream brain circuits controlling sex-specific behaviors. Pheromones are volatile chemical signals that play a major role in controlling mammalian behaviors, in particular social and sexual behaviors such as aggression and reproduction. Unlike odorants, which give rise to the perception of smell, and which can be learned and flexibly associated with different stimuli, the responses to pheromones are fixed and stereotypic. Pheromone responses were known to require the vomeronasal organ (VNO), a specialized part of the olfactory epithelium within the nose, but until Dulac’s work, the molecular identity of the receptors and the neuronal circuits that underlie pheromone-evoked responses had been elusive.

In work that began while she was a postdoc, Dulac set out to identify these receptors, developing novel methods for analyzing RNA from individual sensory neurons. This pioneering work not only led her to the discovery of a large family of pheromone receptor genes, but also demonstrated the feasibility of analyzing the transcriptomes of individual neurons, an approach that is now widely used to study the brain’s extraordinary complexity.

Soon after starting her own lab at Harvard, Dulac discovered a second family of pheromone receptors. Both families are distinct from odorant receptors and are expressed in characteristic spatial patterns within the VNO. Dulac went on to study the mechanism of pheromone action, identifying the ion channel TRPC2 as an essential player in the response of VNO neurons to pheromone signaling. By genetically manipulating this signaling pathway in mice, Dulac was able to show that inputs from the VNO are necessary for gender identification and for the sex-specificity of social behaviors, including mating, aggression and parenting. She was also able to trace the connections from the VNO to the brain systems that control these behaviors, and to characterize specific neuronal populations that are necessary and sufficient for specific social behaviors. In one study, for example, she identified a population of neurons within the hypothalamus that induce parenting behaviors while suppressing aggression toward the offspring that would otherwise be triggered in males by signals from the VNO.

In another recent line of work, Dulac has studied genomic imprinting, an epigenetic phenomenon by which certain genes are differentially expressed depending on whether they were inherited from the mother or the father. Dulac’s work has revealed that imprinting of brain genes is much more common than previously realized, with important implications for basic biology and for the epidemiology of brain disorders.
Among her many honors and awards, Dulac is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur, a member of the French Academy of Sciences, and a member of the US National Academy of Sciences.

The McGovern Institute will award the Scolnick Prize to Dr. Dulac on Monday March 13. At 4:00pm she will deliver a lecture entitled “The Neurobiology of Social Behavior Circuits,” to be followed by a reception, at the McGovern Institute in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Complex, 43 Vassar Street (building 46, room 3002) in Cambridge. The event is free and open to the public.

New center for autism research established at the McGovern Institute

by McGovern Institute |

The McGovern Institute is pleased to announce the establishment of a new center dedicated to autism research. The center is made possible by a kick-off commitment of $20 million, made by Lisa Yang and MIT alumnus Hock Tan ’75.

The Hock E. Tan and K. Lisa Yang Center for Autism Research will support research on the genetic, biological and neural bases of autism spectrum disorders, a developmental disability estimated to affect 1 in 68 individuals in the United States. Tan and Yang hope their initial investment will stimulate additional support and help foster collaborative research efforts to erase the devastating effects of this disorder on individuals, their families and the broader autism community.

“With the Tan-Yang Center for Autism Research, we can imagine a world in which medical science understands and supports those with autism — and we can focus MIT’s distinctive strengths on making that dream a reality. Lisa and Hock’s gift reminds us of the impact we envision for the MIT Campaign for a Better World.  I am grateful for their leadership and generosity, and inspired by the possibilities ahead,” says MIT President L. Rafael Reif.

“I am thrilled to be investing in an institution that values a multidisciplinary collaborative approach to solving complex problems such as autism,” says Hock Tan, who graduated from MIT in 1975 with a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in mechanical engineering. “We expect that successful research originating from our Center will have a significant impact on the autism community.”

Originally from Penang, Malaysia, Tan has held several high-level finance and executive positions since leaving MIT. Tan is currently CEO of chipmaker Broadcom, Ltd.

Research at the Tan-Yang Center will focus on four major lines of investigation: genetics, neural circuits, novel autism models and the translation of basic research to the clinical setting.  By focusing research efforts on the origins of autism in our genes, in the womb and in the first years of life, the Tan-Yang Center aims to develop methods to better detect and potentially prevent autism spectrum disorders entirely. To help meet this challenge, the Center will support collaborations across multiple disciplines—from genes to neural circuits—both within and beyond MIT.

“MIT has some of the world’s leading scientists studying autism,” says McGovern Institute director Robert Desimone. “Support from the Tan-Yang Center will enable us to pursue exciting new directions that could not be funded by traditional sources. We will exploit revolutionary new tools, such as CRISPR and optogenetics, that are transforming research in neuroscience. We hope to not only identify new targets for medicines, but also develop novel treatments that are not based on standard pharmacological approaches. By supporting cutting-edge autism research here at MIT as well as our collaborative institutions, the Center holds great promise to accelerate our basic understanding of this complex disorder.”

“Millions of families have been impacted by autism,” says Yang, a longtime advocate for the rights of individuals with disabilities and learning differences. “I am profoundly hopeful that the discoveries made at the Tan-Yang Center will have a long-term impact on the field of autism research and will provide fresh answers and potential new treatments for individuals affected by this disorder.”

Feng Zhang named James and Patricia Poitras Professor in Neuroscience

Anne Trafton |

The McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT has announced the appointment of Feng Zhang as the inaugural chairholder of the James and Patricia Poitras (1963) Professorship in Neuroscience. This new endowed professorship was made possible through a generous gift by Patricia and James Poitras ’63. The professorship is the second endowed chair Mr. and Mrs. Poitras have established at MIT, and extends their longtime support for mental health research.

“This newly created chair further enhances all that Jim and Pat have done for mental illness research at MIT,” said Robert Desimone, director of the McGovern Institute. “The Poitras Center for Affective Disorders Research has galvanized psychiatric research in multiple labs at MIT, and this new professorship will grant critical support to Professor Zhang’s genome engineering technologies, which continue to significantly advance mental illness research in labs worldwide.”

James and Patricia Poitras founded the Poitras Center for Affective Disorders Research at MIT in 2007. The Center has enabled dozens of advances in mental illness research, including the development of new disease models and novel technologies. Partnerships between the center and McLean Hospital have also resulted in improved methods for predicting and treating psychiatric disorders. In 2003, the Poitras Family established the James W. (1963) and Patricia T. Poitras Professor of Neuroscience in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, currently held by Guoping Feng.

“Providing support for high-risk, high-reward projects that have the potential to significantly impact individuals living with mental illness has been immensely rewarding to us,” Mr. and Mrs. Poitras say. “We are most interested in bringing basic scientific research to bear on new treatment options for psychiatric diseases. The work of Feng Zhang and his team is immeasurably promising to us and to the field of brain disorders research.”

Zhang joined MIT in 2011 as an investigator in the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and an assistant professor in the departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Biological Engineering. In 2013, he was named the W.M. Keck Career Development Professor in Biomedical Engineering, and in 2016 he was awarded tenure. In addition to his roles at MIT, Zhang is a core member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.

“I am deeply honored to be named the first James and Patricia Poitras Professor in Neuroscience,” says Zhang. “The Poitras Family and I share a passion for researching, treating, and eventually curing major mental illness. This chair is a terrific recognition of my group’s dedication to advancing genomic and molecular tools to research and one day solve psychiatric illness.”

Zhang earned his BA in chemistry and physics from Harvard College and his PhD in chemistry from Stanford University. Zhang has received numerous awards for his work in genome editing, especially the CRISPR gene editing system, and optogenetics. These include the Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize, the National Science Foundation’s Alan T. Waterman Award, the Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine, the Society for Neuroscience’s Young Investigator Award, the Okazaki Award, the Canada Gairdner International Award, and the Tang Prize. Zhang is a founder of Editas Medicine, a genome editing company founded by world leaders in the fields of genome editing, protein engineering, and molecular and structural biology.

Monumental new sculpture commissioned for MIT’s McGovern Institute

by Julie Pryor |

The newest addition to MIT’s Public Art Collection is now on permanent display at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at 550 Main Street in Kendall Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts. “SCIENTIA,” a monumental bronze sculpture by Ursula von Rydingsvard is a gift from Lore Harp McGovern and represents the 52nd piece of public art on campus. The new work will be dedicated in a public ceremony on Friday, Oct. 28 at 5 p.m., followed by a free artist talk at 6 p.m. in the Singleton Auditorium (Room 46-3002).

“’SCIENTIA’ represents that art and science are not separate entities,” says Lore Harp McGovern, co-founder of the McGovern Institute and a member of the Council for the Arts at MIT. “Art defines our humanity, advances our curiosity, and forces us to ask big questions — questions the McGovern Institute for Brain Research is trying to answer. ‘SCIENTIA’ invites you in.”

Von Rydingsvard’s “SCIENTIA” is among her most ambitious sculptures to date, at approximately 24 feet tall and over 17,000 pounds. In creating the work, the artist first produced a wood model in her studio using 4×4-inch cedar beams milled for the construction industry.  Using circular saws and a range of cutting tools, she sliced, marked, and shaped the wood elements, then stacked them to create layers that were glued and screwed into place. The full-scale wood model was then transported to Polich Tallix Fine Art Foundry (founded by Richard Polich SM ’65), where the majority of the sculpture was sand cast while the delicate filigree sections were cast using the lost-wax technique. Von Rydingsvard patinated the bronze surface by hand with chemicals and a blow torch.

For over 30 years, von Rydingsvard has been making monumental sculptures that reveal the trace of the human hand and resemble objects and environments that echo the artist’s family heritage in pre-industrial Poland. The artist’s childhood was marked by the strain of living in eight different refugee camps over the course of five years. Her earliest recollections — of displacement and subsistence through humble means — infuse her work with emotional potency. Von Rydingsvard has built towering cedar structures, creating intricate networks of individual beams, shaped by sharp and lyrical cuts and fused together to form rich, dynamic surfaces. While abstract at its core, von Rydingsvard’s work takes visual cues from the landscape, the human body, and utilitarian objects — such as the artist’s collection of household vessels — and demonstrates an interest in the point where the human-made meets nature.

“Ursula von Rydingsvard’s commissioned piece for the McGovern is a fantastic addition to MIT’s great public art collection,” List Visual Arts Center Director Paul C. Ha says. “This powerful sculpture will inspire many and will be one of the signature pieces in our collection. We’re grateful for Ms. McGovern’s thoughtfulness and her generosity in helping us acquire this magnificent piece for MIT.”

View the SCIENTIA photo gallery >>

Faculty at MIT and beyond respond forcefully to an article critical of Suzanne Corkin

Anne Trafton |

On August 7, 2016, the New York Times Magazine published “The Brain That Couldn’t Remember,” an article adapted from the forthcoming book “Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets,” by Luke Dittrich. The article is highly critical of the late Suzanne Corkin, who was a professor emerita of neuroscience until her death on May 24.

In response to the article, more than 200 members of the international scientific community — most from outside MIT — have signed a letter in support of Corkin and her research with the amnesic patient Henry Molaison.

What follows is a statement by James DiCarlo, the Peter de Florez Professor of Neuroscience and head of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT.

***

In “The Brain That Couldn’t Remember,” three allegations are made against Professor Suzanne Corkin, who died on May 24. Professors John Gabrieli and Nancy Kanwisher at MIT have examined evidence in relation to each allegation, and, as detailed below, have found significant evidence that contradicts each allegation. In our judgment, the evidence below rebuts each claim.

1. Allegation that research records were or would be destroyed or shredded.

We believe that no records were destroyed and, to the contrary, that Professor Corkin worked in her final days to organize and preserve all records. Even as her health failed (she had advanced cancer and was receiving chemotherapy), she instructed her assistant to continue to organize, label, and maintain all records related to Henry Molaison. The records currently remain within our department.

Assuming that the interview is accurately and fully reported by Mr. Dittrich, we cannot explain why Professor Corkin made the comments reported in the article. This may have been related to tensions between the author and Professor Corkin because she had turned down his request to examine Mr. Molaison’s confidential medical and research records.

Regardless, the critical point is not what was said in an interview, but rather what actions were actually taken by Professor Corkin. The actions were to preserve the records.

2. Allegation that the finding of an additional lesion in left orbitofrontal cortex was suppressed.

The public record is clear that Professor Corkin communicated this discovery of an additional lesion in Mr. Molaison to both scientific and public audiences. This factual evidence is contradictory to any allegation of the suppression of a finding.

The original scientific report (Nature Communications, 2014) of the post-mortem examination of Mr. Molaison’s brain included this information in the most prominent and widely read portion of the report, the abstract.

In addition, Professor Corkin herself disseminated this information in public forums, including a 2014 interview, posted on MIT News and subsequently elsewhere online, in which she said: “We discovered a new lesion in the lateral orbital gyrus of the left frontal lobe. This damage was also visible in the postmortem MRI scans. The etiology of this lesion is presently unknown; future histological studies will clarify the cause and timeframe of this damage. Currently, it is unclear whether this lesion had any consequence for H.M.’s behavior.”

3. Allegation that there was something inappropriate in the selection of Tom Mooney as Mr. Molaison’s guardian.

In her book “Permanent Present Tense” (2013), Professor Corkin describes precisely the provenance of Mr. Molaison’s guardianship (page 201).

Briefly, in 1974 Mr. Molaison and his mother (who was in failing health; his father was deceased) moved in with Lillian Herrick, whose first husband was related to Mr. Molaison’s mother. Mrs. Herrick is described as caring for Mr. Molaison until 1980, when she was diagnosed with advanced cancer, and Mr. Molaison was admitted to a nursing home founded by her brother.

In 1991, the Probate Court in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, appointed Mrs. Herrick’s son, Tom Mooney, as Mr. Molaison’s conservator. (Mr. Mooney is referred to as “Mr. M” in the book because of his desire for privacy.) This family took an active interest in helping Mr. Molaison and his mother, and was able to help place him in the nursing home that took care of him.

Mr. Dittrich provides no evidence that anything untoward occurred, and we are not aware of anything untoward in this process. Mr. Dittrich identifies some individuals who were genetically closer to Mr. Molaison than Mrs. Herrick or her son, but it is our understanding that this family took in Mr. Molaison and his mother, and took care of Mr. Molaison for many years. Mr. Mooney was appointed conservator by the local court after a valid legal process, which included providing notice of a hearing and appointment of counsel to Mr. Molaison.

Journalists are absolutely correct to hold scientists to very high standards. I — and over 200 scientists who have signed a letter to the editor in support of Professor Corkin — believe she more than achieved those high standards. However, the author (and, implicitly, the Times) has failed to do so.

James J. DiCarlo MD, PhD
Peter de Florez Professor of Neuroscience
Head, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Investigator, McGovern Institute for Brain Research
Massachusetts Institute of Technology