Dear Friends and Alumni of MIT Biology,

The fall semester is rapidly approaching and the department and Institute are preparing both for remote learning and for on-campus activity. Rising seniors and a small number of other students have been invited to return to campus for the fall. The hope is for all other undergraduate students to be invited onto campus for the spring term, so that every student has had the opportunity to be on campus at least one term this academic year. Undergraduates must live on campus to access campus facilities or in-person instruction. In addition, a special first-year experience is in the works.

The research ramp-up continues, with no reported cases of COVID-19 among the members of the MIT community who have returned to campus. We are therefore preparing for the second phase of the research ramp-up, where on-campus research activity increases from 25% to 50% capacity. The guidelines remain that anything that can be done remotely must be done remotely. We’re all excited that wet lab experiments have started again in our labs and that people have been following the safety guidelines and remaining healthy.

In this newsletter, we share faculty and trainee news; an alumni spotlight; recent happenings around the department; and a listing of the research we have published since the last newsletter. We hope that you enjoy the newsletter and that it stimulates your interest. As always, we welcome your feedback and questions at bioheadline@mit.edu. Please be well and stay safe in these challenging times.

Sincerely,
Alan

EDUCATION AND OUTREACH

The LEAH Knox Scholars Program has gone virtual this year. Twenty-four rising juniors and seniors from local high schools commenced a summer of (remote) science in late June. First-time participants began a five-week lab course with MIT Biology instructors from the comfort of their own homes. Director of Outreach Mandana Sassanfar and Technical Instructor Vanessa Cheung partnered with MIT’s Edgerton Center to create “Bags of Science.” These toolkits contained specialized DNA and protein modeling kits, as well as tubes, pipettes, and other lab equipment. Participants returning for their second summer are completing six-week remote internships. Eight have been placed at MIT labs.

What follows is a small sampling of recently published research across the department — for a more complete list of publications, visit PubMed. If there is a paper you would like to see highlighted in the next issue of the newsletter, please email us.

Functional analysis of CX3CR1 in human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell-derived microglia-like cells.
Murai N, Mitalipova M, Jaenisch R. Eur J Neurosci. 2020 Jun 24. doi: 10.1111/ejn.14879. Online ahead of print. PMID: 32579729

Muscle and neuronal guidepost-like cells facilitate planarian visual system regeneration.
Scimone ML, Atabay KD, Fincher CT, Bonneau AR, Li DJ, Reddien PW. Science. 2020 Jun 26;368(6498):eaba3203. doi: 10.1126/science.aba3203. PMID: 32586989

YAP Enhances Tumor Cell Dissemination by Promoting Intravascular Motility and Re-entry into Systemic Circulation.
Benjamin DC, Kang JH, Hamza B, King EM, Lamar JM, Manalis SR, Hynes RO. Cancer Res. 2020 Jun 26:canres.0212.2020. doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-20-0212. Online ahead of print. PMID: 32591412

Identifying the Target of an Antiparasitic Compound in Toxoplasma Using Thermal Proteome Profiling.
Herneisen AL, Sidik SM, Markus BM, Drewry DH, Zuercher WJ, Lourido S. ACS Chem Biol. 2020 Jul 6. doi: 10.1021/acschembio.0c00369. Online ahead of print. PMID: 32597628

The network effect: studying COVID-19 pathology with the Human Cell Atlas.
Teichmann S, Regev A. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2020 Jun 30:1-2. doi: 10.1038/s41580-020-0267-3. Online ahead of print. PMID: 32606379

Synaptic plasticity induced by differential manipulation of tonic and phasic motoneurons in Drosophila.
Aponte-Santiago NA, Ormerod KG, Akbergenova Y, Littleton JT. J Neurosci. 2020 Jul 6:JN-RM-0925-20. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0925-20.2020. Online ahead of print. PMID: 32631939

The environmental stress response causes ribosome loss in aneuploid yeast cells.
Terhorst A, Sandikci A, Keller A, Whittaker CA, Dunham MJ, Amon A. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020 Jul 6:202005648. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2005648117. Online ahead of print. PMID: 32632008

Dissecting cell type-specific metabolism in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.
Lau AN, Li Z, Danai LV, Westermark AM, Darnell AM, Ferreira R, Gocheva V, Sivanand S, Lien EC, Sapp KM, Mayers JR, Biffi G, Chin CR, Davidson SM, Tuveson DA, Jacks T, Matheson NJ, Yilmaz O, Vander Heiden MG. Elife. 2020 Jul 10;9:e56782. doi: 10.7554/eLife.56782. Online ahead of print. PMID: 32648540

The biochemical basis for the cooperative action of microRNAs.
Briskin D, Wang PY, Bartel DP. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020 Jul 13:201920404. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1920404117. Online ahead of print. PMID: 32661162

Biomolecular Condensates in the Nucleus.
Sabari BR, Dall'Agnese A, Young RA. Trends Biochem Sci. 2020 Jul 16:S0968-0004(20)30167-5. doi: 10.1016/j.tibs.2020.06.007. Online ahead of print. PMID: 32684431

The intrinsically disordered N-terminal extension of the ClpS adaptor reprograms its partner AAA+ ClpAP protease.
Torres-Delgado A, Kotamarthi HC, Sauer RT, Baker TA. J Mol Biol. 2020 Jul 17:S0022-2836(20)30451-4. doi: 10.1016/j.jmb.2020.07.007. Online ahead of print. PMID: 32687854

Redox priming promotes Aurora A activation during mitosis.
Lim DC, Joukov V, Rettenmaier TJ, Kumagai A, Dunphy WG, Wells JA, Yaffe MB. Sci Signal. 2020 Jul 21;13(641):eabb6707. doi: 10.1126/scisignal.abb6707. PMID: 32694171

MeCP2 links heterochromatin condensates and neurodevelopmental disease.
Li CH, Coffey EL, Dall'Agnese A, Hannett NM, Tang X, Henninger JE, Platt JM, Oksuz O, Zamudio AV, Afeyan LK, Schuijers J, Liu XS, Markoulaki S, Lungjangwa T, LeRoy G, Svoboda DS, Wogram E, Lee TI, Jaenisch R, Young RA. Nature. 2020 Jul 22. doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2574-4. Online ahead of print. PMID: 32698189

Epigenomic State Transitions Characterize Tumor Progression in Mouse Lung Adenocarcinoma.

LaFave LM, Kartha VK, Ma S, Meli K, Del Priore I, Lareau C, Naranjo S, Westcott PMK, Duarte FM, Sankar V, Chiang Z, Brack A, Law T, Hauck H, Okimoto A, Regev A, Buenrostro JD, Jacks T. Cancer Cell. 2020 Jul 7:S1535-6108(20)30310-X. doi: 10.1016/j.ccell.2020.06.006. Online ahead of print. PMID: 32707078

Principles of Epigenetic Homeostasis Shared Between Flowering Plants and Mammals.

Williams BP, Gehring M. Trends Genet. 2020 Jul 22:S0168-9525(20)30169-4. doi: 10.1016/j.tig.2020.06.019. Online ahead of print. PMID: 32711945

SAVE THE DATE

LEAH Knox Scholars Summer Research Symposium
On Thursday, August 6, the LEAH Knox Scholars will share excerpts from their summer experiences via Zoom from 5:30 – 7 p.m. ET. Register in advance.

MSRP Poster Presentations
Join us on Friday, August 7 from 12:30 – 4:30 p.m. ET to hear MSRPx-Bio students explain their summer research projects via Zoom (password: MSRP2020PR).