May 12, 2008

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Four from HMS Join NAS

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has named 72 new members, four of whom are HMS faculty members. The NAS is a private organization of scientists and engineers dedicated to the progress of science. New members are chosen in recognition of their achievements in original research.

The new NAS members from HMS are Michael Greenberg, Ronald Kessler, Anjana Rao, and Gary Ruvkun.

The Greenberg laboratory has identified a genetic program by which experience promotes the development and maturation of synapses in the brain. An HMS professor of neurology at Children’s Hospital Boston, Greenberg and his colleagues are currently investigating the mechanisms of signaling from the synapse to the nucleus that leads to gene activation and how components of the experience-dependent gene program shape synaptic development.

Kessler, HMS professor of health care policy, is a sociologist whose research deals broadly with the structural determinants and social consequences of mental disorders. He is director of the World Health Organization World Mental Health Survey Initiative, where he supervises implementation and analysis of psychiatric epidemiological surveys in 28 countries throughout the world.

Rao’s research has been focused on the molecular mechanisms of signal transduction and gene expression in T cells and other immune cells. Specifically, she has elucidated the intracellular signal transduction pathway leading from store-operated calcium entry through CRAC channels to activation of the transcription factor NFAT. Rao, HMS professor of pathology at the Immune Disease Institute, identified the founding member of the NFAT family and the CRAC channel pore subunit and defined the dual roles of the calcium/NFAT pathway in immune activation and tolerance.    

Ruvkun, HMS professor of genetics at Massachusetts General Hospital, played a role in the discovery of microRNA. The Ruvkun lab also investigates longevity and fat storage. He and his colleagues discovered that like mammals, C. elegans uses an insulin-signaling pathway to control its metabolism and longevity, and they showed that insulin signaling in the nervous system is key to life span. Currently, his lab is investigating how approximately 100 other gene inactivations cause an increase in life span in C. elegans.

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Copyright 2008 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College