Thursday, January 26, 2012

Broad Institute lands $32.5M grant for cell circuit research

By Michelle Lang

The Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT plans to create a “cell observatory” courtesy of a $32.5 million grant from the Klarman Family Foundation.

The Klarman Cell Observatory will focus on experimental and computational methods of cell circuit research. It’s expected to draw on collaborations with other scientists. The new observatory is emphasizing collaboration with researchers in Israel, in particular, where the Broad said there is heavy expertise in cell circuitry of single-celled organisms.

Aviv Regev, a Broad Institute core member and MIT professor, will lead the Klarman Cell Observatory. She has focused with her team on research of cell biology and understanding circuitry of two human cell types – a type of immune cell and the stem cells that form blood cells. Regev has won an NIH pioneer award in 2008 for her research into development, disease and evolution effects on cells’ regulatory networks.  Also in 2008, she won a $50,000 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship.

Founded in 2003 as the Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, the Broad supports faculty, staff and students conducting biomedical research.