Featured series 
Tag: molecular and cellular biology
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Science & Tech
Demystifying a mammal’s brain, cell by cell
Harvard-led team helps create first molecular map for national neuroscience study
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Campus & Community
5 faculty members named Harvard College Professors
They are recognized for excellence in teaching in fields ranging from biophysics to cultural studies.
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Science & Tech
Taking a lesson in evolutionary adaptation from octopus, squid
Two new studies describe path of divergent sensing capabilities, tracking lineage from common ancestral neurons.
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Science & Tech
Fresh insights into inflammation, aging brains
Harvard scientists’ research on mice suggests chain reaction may be involved in the brain’s aging process.
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Science & Tech
A Rosetta Stone of biology
Harvard researcher develops program to read any genome sequence and decipher its genetic code.
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Campus & Community
5 faculty members named Harvard College Professors
Five faculty members join the ranks of Harvard College Professors.
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Campus & Community
Catherine Dulac wins Breakthrough Prize for Life Sciences
Catherine Dulac is awarded a 2021 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for her pioneering work identifying the neural circuitry that regulates parenting behavior.
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Campus & Community
Five faculty members named Harvard College Professors
Five faculty members have been named Harvard College Professors for their contributions to undergraduate teaching.
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Campus & Community
Early responses indicate shift to online classes going well overall
Harvard professors offer early responses to teaching online, with some finding hitches tempered by surprising benefits.
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Health
Debunking old hypotheses
Biology Professor Cassandra G. Extavour debunks old hypotheses about form and function on insect eggs using new big-data tool
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Health
A volume control for the brain
The brain is awash in sights, sounds, smells, and other stimuli every moment. How can it sort through the flood of information to decide what is important and what can be relegated to the background? Harvard researchers found evidence that oxytocin, popularly known as the “love hormone,” plays a crucial role in helping the brain…
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Campus & Community
In the comings and goings of shopping week, first impressions matter
The first week of each semester is known as “shopping week” at Harvard, during which students are encouraged to try out classes before formally registering.
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Health
Teaching computers to identify odors
Using a machine-learning algorithm, researchers were able to “train” a computer to recognize the neural patterns associated with various scents, and identify whether specific odors were present in a mix of smells.
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Health
How our bodies harness energy
Robert A. Lue, faculty director of the Harvard Ed Portal, offered his audience insight into his upcoming HarvardX course “Cell Biology: Mitochondria,” during a talk on April 21.
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Health
Closer view of the brain
A team of researchers has succeeded in imaging — at the nano scale — every item in a small portion of mouse brain. What they found, Lichtman said, could open the door to, among other things, understanding how learning alters the brain.
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Campus & Community
Funding for projects with promise
Four scientists from across Harvard will receive nearly $8 million in grant funding through the National Institutes of Health’s High Risk-High Reward program to support research into a variety of biomedical questions, ranging from how the bacterial cell wall is constructed to how the blood-brain barrier works.
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Health
When cooperation counts
A new study conducted by Harvard scientists shows that in deer mice, a species known to be highly promiscuous, sperm clump together to swim in a more linear fashion, increasing their chances of fertilization.
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Health
Key connection
Scientists have long suggested that the best way to settle the debate about how phenotypic plasticity may be connected to evolution would be to identify a mechanism that controls both. Harvard researchers say they have discovered just such a mechanism in insulin signaling in fruit flies.
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Health
‘On’ switches for cells
Scientists at Harvard have identified a previously unknown embryonic signal, dubbed Toddler, that instructs cells to move and reorganize themselves, through a process known as gastrulation, into three layers.
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Health
‘Brainbow,’ version 2.0
Led by Joshua Sanes and Jeff Lichtman, a group of Harvard researchers has made a host of technical improvements in the “Brainbow” imaging technique.
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Health
One gene, many mutations
In a new paper, Harvard researchers show that changes in coat color in mice are the result not of a single mutation, but of many mutations, all in a single gene. The results start to answer one of the fundamental questions about evolution: Does it proceed by huge leaps — single mutations that result in…
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Campus & Community
First Santiago Ramón y Cajal Professor is named
Jeff Lichtman, the Jeremy R. Knowles Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, has been appointed as the first Ramón y Cajal Professor of Arts and Sciences.
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Health
Digging yields clues
As described in a Jan. 16 paper in Nature, a team of researchers led by Hopi Hoekstra, professor of organismic and evolutionary biology and molecular and cellular biology, studied two species of mice – oldfield mice and deer mice – and identified four regions in their genome that appear to influence the way they dig…
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Campus & Community
HHMI taps Erin O’Shea
Erin K. O’Shea, the director of the FAS Center for Systems Biology, has accepted the position of vice president and chief scientific officer of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She will also maintain her lab and involvement at Harvard.
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Campus & Community
Where sand and sun meet science
The annual Rhino Cup volleyball league stokes the competitive fires of Harvard’s biological community, drawing researchers out of the lab and onto the sandy volleyball court in the courtyard of the Biological Laboratories.
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Health
Simplifying multidrug therapies
As described in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a research team found that by studying how drugs interact in pairs, researchers can predict how larger combinations of drugs will interact.
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Health
The growing brain
As reported on June 7 in the journal Neuron, a team of researchers led by Professor Jeff Lichtman has found that just days before birth mice undergo an explosion of neuromuscular branching. At birth, the research showed, some muscle fibers are contacted by as many as 10 nerve cells. Within days, however, all but one…
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Health
Tracing the brain’s connections
A team of researchers is using a genetically modified version of the rabies virus to create the first comprehensive list of inputs that connect directly to dopamine neurons in two regions of the brain.
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Science & Tech
Optimism on solar energy
Energy Secretary Steven Chu says China has “Henry Ford-ed” the U.S. solar industry, building a global empire on advances made in the U.S.
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Health
Where (tiny) form follows function
A professor studies how the structure of large proteins influences how we feel heat, examining how the proteins behave and interact with molecules around them.
