Four Harvard affiliates make Scientific American’s 50 list

Scientific American has recognized 50 innovative organizations and individuals for their wide-ranging scientific and technological contributions. Included in this prestigious list, featured in the December issue of Scientific American (available Nov. 22), are four Harvard professors.

Selected by the magazine’s board of editors with the help of outside advisers, the Scientific American 50 honors research, business, and policy leaders in an array of fields whose work has facilitated science and technology advances.

The following Harvard affiliates were named research leaders by the magazine.

Zheng-Yi Chen, assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School (HMS), was honored for demonstrating that gene therapy can also treat chronic conditions such as hearing loss, in addition to its traditional applications.

George Church, professor of genetics at HMS, was cited for advancing the field of artificial life through creation of a new method of making synthetic DNA, giving scientists the power to create genes that never before existed.

Bradley Hyman, John B. Penney Jr. Professor of Neurology at HMS, was honored for developing early brain scanning tools helping to pinpoint the presence of Alzheimer’s disease.

Mark T. Keating, professor of cell biology and pediatrics of HMS, was cited for his success using biomedical engineering to enable adult mammal heart muscle cells to multiply, a first step on the road to new heart-repair therapies.

Founded in 1845, Scientific American is the nation’s premier magazine devoted to science and technology. Its editorial contributors have included more than 100 Nobel laureates including Albert Einstein, Neils Bohr, Francis Crick, Stanley Prusiner, and Harold Varmus.