Broad Institute
Encyclopedia
The Broad Institute is a genomic medicine research center located in Cambridge, Massachusetts
, United States
. Although it is independently governed and supported as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit research organization, the institute is formally affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
, Harvard University
and its affiliated hospitals.
One cornerstone was the Whitehead Institute
at MIT. Founded in 1982, the Whitehead became a major center for genomics and the Human Genome Project
. As early as 1995, scientists at the Whitehead started pilot projects in genomic medicine, forming an unofficial collaborative network among young scientists interested in genomic approaches to cancer and human genetics.
Another cornerstone was the Institute of Chemistry and Cell Biology established by Harvard Medical School
in 1998 to pursue chemical genetics as an academic discipline. Its screening facility was one of the first high-throughput resources opened in an academic setting. It facilitated small molecule screening projects for more than 80 research groups worldwide.
To create a new organization that was open, collaborative, cross-disciplinary and able to organize projects at any scale, planning took place in 2002-2003 among philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad
, MIT, the Whitehead Institute, Harvard and the Harvard hospitals (in particular, the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
, Brigham and Women's Hospital
, Children's Hospital Boston
, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
and the Massachusetts General Hospital
).
The Broads made a founding gift of $100 million and the Broad Institute was formally launched in May 2004. In November 2005, the Broads announced an additional $100 million gift to the Institute. On 4 September 2008 the Broads announced an endowment of $400 million to make the Broad Institute a permanent establishment. The donation will be managed by Harvard's investment unit.
The Core Members of the Broad Institute currently are:
, house one of the largest genome sequencing
centers in the world. As WICGR (Whitehead Institute/MIT Center for Genome Research), this facility was the largest contributor of sequence information to the Human Genome Project
.
In February 2006, The Broad Institute expanded to a new building at 7 Cambridge Center, adjacent to the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. This seven-story 231000 square feet (21,460.6 m²) building contains office, research laboratory, retail and museum space. In 2010, the Broad expanded into a further 80000 sq ft (7,432.2 m²). at 301 Binney St. In 2011 the Institute announced plans to construct an additional tower adjacent to the 7 Cambridge Center site at 75 Ames St. The proposed tower would be 18 stories and would consolidate other research from the 320 Charles, 5 Cambridge Center, and 301 Binney sites when those leases expire in 2014. The general design was approved as part of a district rezoning decision made by the Cambridge City Council in August, 2010.
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Although it is independently governed and supported as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit research organization, the institute is formally affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
, Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
and its affiliated hospitals.
History
The Broad Institute evolved from a decade of research collaborations among MIT and Harvard scientists.One cornerstone was the Whitehead Institute
Whitehead Institute
Founded in 1982, the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research is a non-profit research and teaching institution located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA....
at MIT. Founded in 1982, the Whitehead became a major center for genomics and the Human Genome Project
Human Genome Project
The Human Genome Project is an international scientific research project with a primary goal of determining the sequence of chemical base pairs which make up DNA, and of identifying and mapping the approximately 20,000–25,000 genes of the human genome from both a physical and functional...
. As early as 1995, scientists at the Whitehead started pilot projects in genomic medicine, forming an unofficial collaborative network among young scientists interested in genomic approaches to cancer and human genetics.
Another cornerstone was the Institute of Chemistry and Cell Biology established by Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts....
in 1998 to pursue chemical genetics as an academic discipline. Its screening facility was one of the first high-throughput resources opened in an academic setting. It facilitated small molecule screening projects for more than 80 research groups worldwide.
To create a new organization that was open, collaborative, cross-disciplinary and able to organize projects at any scale, planning took place in 2002-2003 among philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad
Eli Broad
Eli Broad is an American businessman from Detroit, Michigan who resides in Los Angeles, California.-Life and career:An only child, Broad was born in the Bronx to Lithuanian Jewish immigrant parents. His father was a housepainter, his mother was a dressmaker. His family moved to Detroit when he...
, MIT, the Whitehead Institute, Harvard and the Harvard hospitals (in particular, the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts is a major flagship teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. It was formed out of the 1996 merger of Beth Israel Hospital and New England Deaconess Hospital...
, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Brigham and Women's Hospital is the largest hospital of the Longwood Medical and Academic Area in Boston, Massachusetts. It is directly adjacent to Harvard Medical School of which it is the second largest teaching affiliate with 793 beds...
, Children's Hospital Boston
Children's Hospital Boston
Children's Hospital Boston is a 396-licensed bed children's hospital in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area of Boston, Massachusetts.At 300 Longwood Avenue, Children's is adjacent both to its teaching affiliate, Harvard Medical School, and to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute...
, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Dana–Farber Cancer Institute is part of a Comprehensive Cancer Center designated by the National Cancer Institute. It is a major affiliate of Harvard Medical School and is located in the Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts.-Overview:...
and the Massachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital is a teaching hospital and biomedical research facility in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts...
).
The Broads made a founding gift of $100 million and the Broad Institute was formally launched in May 2004. In November 2005, the Broads announced an additional $100 million gift to the Institute. On 4 September 2008 the Broads announced an endowment of $400 million to make the Broad Institute a permanent establishment. The donation will be managed by Harvard's investment unit.
Research programs
The Broad Institute's scientific research programs include the:- CancerCancerCancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
Program - Program in MedicalMedical geneticsMedical genetics is the specialty of medicine that involves the diagnosis and management of hereditary disorders. Medical genetics differs from Human genetics in that human genetics is a field of scientific research that may or may not apply to medicine, but medical genetics refers to the...
and Population GeneticsPopulation geneticsPopulation genetics is the study of allele frequency distribution and change under the influence of the four main evolutionary processes: natural selection, genetic drift, mutation and gene flow. It also takes into account the factors of recombination, population subdivision and population... - GenomeGenomeIn modern molecular biology and genetics, the genome is the entirety of an organism's hereditary information. It is encoded either in DNA or, for many types of virus, in RNA. The genome includes both the genes and the non-coding sequences of the DNA/RNA....
Biology and Cell Circuits Program - Chemical BiologyChemical biologyChemical biology is a scientific discipline spanning the fields of chemistry and biology that involves the application of chemical techniques and tools, often compounds produced through synthetic chemistry, to the study and manipulation of biological systems. This is a subtle difference from...
Program - Metabolic Disease Initiative
- Infectious DiseaseInfectious diseaseInfectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
Initiative - Psychiatric DiseasePsychiatryPsychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
Initiative - Computational BiologyComputational biologyComputational biology involves the development and application of data-analytical and theoretical methods, mathematical modeling and computational simulation techniques to the study of biological, behavioral, and social systems...
and BioinformaticsBioinformaticsBioinformatics is the application of computer science and information technology to the field of biology and medicine. Bioinformatics deals with algorithms, databases and information systems, web technologies, artificial intelligence and soft computing, information and computation theory, software...
Faculty
The faculty and staff of the Broad Institute include physicians, geneticists, and molecular, chemical, and computational biologists. The Faculty currently includes nine Core Members, whose labs are primarily located within the Broad Institute, and 108 Associate Members, whose primary labs are located at one of the universities or hospitals.The Core Members of the Broad Institute currently are:
- David Altshuler, a clinical endocrinologist and human geneticist, is director of the Medical and Population GeneticsPopulation geneticsPopulation genetics is the study of allele frequency distribution and change under the influence of the four main evolutionary processes: natural selection, genetic drift, mutation and gene flow. It also takes into account the factors of recombination, population subdivision and population...
program. He studies human genetic variation and its application to disease, using tools and information from the Human Genome Project. He is a 2010 appointee to the Institute of MedicineInstitute of MedicineThe Institute of Medicine is a not-for-profit, non-governmental American organization founded in 1970, under the congressional charter of the National Academy of Sciences...
(IOM) of the United States National Academy of SciencesUnited States National Academy of SciencesThe National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
.
- Todd GolubTodd GolubTodd R. Golub is a Professor of Pediatrics at the Harvard Medical School, the Charles A. Dana Investigator in Human Cancer Genetics at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and a founding member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard...
, a physician-researcher, is director of the Cancer program. He applies genomic tools to the classification and study of cancers.
- Myriam Heiman
- Deborah Hung is a chemical biologist and an infectious disease physician who studies the interactions between pathogenPathogenA pathogen gignomai "I give birth to") or infectious agent — colloquially, a germ — is a microbe or microorganism such as a virus, bacterium, prion, or fungus that causes disease in its animal or plant host...
s and their hosts, with the goal of discovering new antibiotic targets.
- Eric LanderEric LanderEric Steven Lander is a Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , a member of the Whitehead Institute, and director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard who has devoted his career toward realizing the promise of the human genome for medicine. He is co-chair of U.S...
is the director of the Broad Institute. A geneticist, molecular biologist and mathematician, Lander has been a driving force in the development of genomics and a prominent leader of the Human Genome ProjectHuman Genome ProjectThe Human Genome Project is an international scientific research project with a primary goal of determining the sequence of chemical base pairs which make up DNA, and of identifying and mapping the approximately 20,000–25,000 genes of the human genome from both a physical and functional...
.
- Aviv RegevAviv RegevAviv Regev is a computational biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, an assistant professor in the department of biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an Early Career Scientist at Howard Hughes Medical Institute....
is a computational biologist with interests in biological networks, gene regulation and evolution.
- Stuart SchreiberStuart SchreiberStuart L. Schreiber is a scientist at Harvard University and the Broad Institute. He has been a pioneer in a field of research named chemical biology for over 20 years. His name is closely associated with the increasingly common use of small molecules as probes of biology and medicine...
is director of the Chemical Biology program. He has developed systematic ways to explore biology, especially disease biology, using small molecules toward the development of therapeutic drugs.
- Edward Scolnick
- Feng Zhang
Facilities
The Broad Institute's facilities at 320 Charles Street in Cambridge, MassachusettsCambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
, house one of the largest genome sequencing
DNA sequencing
DNA sequencing includes several methods and technologies that are used for determining the order of the nucleotide bases—adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine—in a molecule of DNA....
centers in the world. As WICGR (Whitehead Institute/MIT Center for Genome Research), this facility was the largest contributor of sequence information to the Human Genome Project
Human Genome Project
The Human Genome Project is an international scientific research project with a primary goal of determining the sequence of chemical base pairs which make up DNA, and of identifying and mapping the approximately 20,000–25,000 genes of the human genome from both a physical and functional...
.
In February 2006, The Broad Institute expanded to a new building at 7 Cambridge Center, adjacent to the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. This seven-story 231000 square feet (21,460.6 m²) building contains office, research laboratory, retail and museum space. In 2010, the Broad expanded into a further 80000 sq ft (7,432.2 m²). at 301 Binney St. In 2011 the Institute announced plans to construct an additional tower adjacent to the 7 Cambridge Center site at 75 Ames St. The proposed tower would be 18 stories and would consolidate other research from the 320 Charles, 5 Cambridge Center, and 301 Binney sites when those leases expire in 2014. The general design was approved as part of a district rezoning decision made by the Cambridge City Council in August, 2010.
Further reading
- commentary on the Broad Institute's website, receiving a 4-star excellent rating
External links