Overview

The MGH Center for Systems Biology (CSB) was established in 2007 as one of the five thematic interdisciplinary Centers at MGH. The Center is directed by Professor Ralph Weissleder, and is located on two floors in the new Simches Research Building.

Simches_3

The mission of the Center is to analyze at a systems level how biological molecules, proteins and cells interact in both healthy and diseased states.

Through a multidisciplinary approach that combines clinical insight with powerful technologies, CSB faculty pursue systems-level research that is at once fundamental, and yet immediately linked to the diagnosis and treatment of human disease. While these approaches are generalizable to many diseases, the Center has particular strengths in complex human conditions such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, autoimmune disease, and renal disease. This goal is enabled by particular faculty expertise in genomics, chemical biology, physiology, bioimaging, and nanotechnology.

The Center is a major node for the Harvard-wide Program in Systems Biology, and has active links with the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, clinical departments at MGH, and the other MGH thematic centers.

Recent Publications (more...)

Wang L, Harrington L, Trebicka E, Shi HN, Kagan JC, Hong CC, Lin HY, Babitt JL, Cherayil BJ
Selective modulation of TLR4-activated inflammatory responses by altered iron homeostasis in mice.
J Clin Invest. 2009;:ePub - PMID: 19809161 - PMCID: PMC2769199
Azab A, Runnels J, Pitsillides C, Moreau A, Azab F, Leleu X, Jia X, Wright R, Ospina B, Carlson A, Alt C, Burwick N, Roccaro A, Ngo H, Farag M, Melhem M, Sacco A, Munshi N, Hideshima T, Rollins B, Anderson K, Kung A, Lin CP, Ghobrial I
CXCR4 inhibitor AMD3100 disrupts the interaction of multiple myeloma cells with the bone marrow microenvironment and enhances their sensitivity to therapy.
Blood. 2009;113:4341-51 - PMID: 19139079 - PMCID: PMC2676090
Berman SD, West JC, Danielian PS, Caron AM, Stone JR, Lees JA
Mutation of p107 exacerbates the consequences of Rb loss in embryonic tissues and causes cardiac and blood vessel defects.
P Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009;106(35):14932-6 - PMID: 19706423 - PMCID: PMC2736449

Recent News (more...)

2009-10-12: Dr. Ralph Weissleder has been elected as a new member of the U.S. National Academies Institute of Medicine (IOM). This is one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine.
2009-09-30: Sylvie Breton, PhD was among the first 42 recipients of Transformative R01 Awards, a new program designed to give recipients resources and flexibility to pursue high-risk projects that have the potential to overturn current scientific assumptions.
2009-09-09: F1000 Medicine features the Science article ‘Identification of Splenic Reservoir Monocytes and Their Deployment to Inflammatory Sites’.
2009-09-03: CSB welcomes John Higgins, MD. His Lab will study the dynamics of human pathophysiologic processes by developing mathematical descriptions of complex human disease phenotypes and how they change over time.
2009-09-01: ‘Storage in the spleen’. An article in Nature Medicine by Clare Thomas features the article ‘Identification of Splenic Reservoir Monocytes and Their Deployment to Inflammatory Sites’.

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