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Biology at MIT Biology Facilities
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The Biology Department’s faculty and labs are located in several neighboring buildings on and near the MIT main campus. The Koch Biology Building is the central Biology facility, located on Ames Street in the main campus cluster. The Center for Cancer Research is immediately across Ames Street; the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the McGovern Institute have recently joined the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences in their new building on Vassar St. The Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and the Broad Institute's new building are both across Main Street from the Koch Building. (See map.)
The Koch Building opened in 1994, and was named in 1999 for David H. Koch (SB & SM 1962). The structure is a state-of-the-art research and teaching facility and also houses the administrative offices for the Department. This building is home to over 30 faculty members. This facility allowed members of the Department who were formerly housed in four disparate buildings across campus, to come together under one roof for the first time in almost four decades, providing the opportunity to interact and collaborate in a new, dynamic, and vigorous setting.
The Center for Cancer Research (CCR) is directly across Ames Street from the Koch Building and is home for fifteen Biology faculty. The Center was opened at MIT in 1974, and is one of eight National Cancer Institute-designated basic research centers. CCR's mission is to apply the tools of basic science and technology to determine how cancer is caused, progresses and responds to treatment. Scientists from the Cancer Center have made numerous major discoveries, including the cloning of the first oncogene from a human tumor. CCR’s research is built on the faculty's strengths in molecular biology, genetics, cell biology, and immunology.
Sixteen Biology faculty are situated in the Whitehead Institute, a non-profit, independent research and educational institution with leading programs in cancer and AIDS research, structural biology, genetics, infectious disease research, developmental biology, and transgenic science. The Whitehead’s mission is two-fold: improve human health and welfare, and extend the boundaries of knowledge for future generations. The Whitehead is affiliated with MIT in its teaching activities, but wholly independent in its governance, finances, and research programs.
The Broad Institute is a research collaboration involving faculty, professional staff and students from throughout the MIT and Harvard academic and medical communities and is governed jointly by the two universities. It was founded in 2003 through the far-sighted generosity of philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad.
The Broad incorporates the former Whitehead Institute/MIT Center for Genome Research (WICGR) which had been founded in 1990 and soon became an international leader in the field of genomics and a flagship of the Human Genome Project; and Harvard Medical School's Institute of Chemistry and Cell Biology (ICCB), whose screening facility was one of the first high-throughput resources opened in an academic setting.
The results of these two projects demonstrated the power of enabling scientists to collaborate to tackle major challenges in genomic medicine. It was clear that a new type of organization was required — open, collaborative, cross-disciplinary and able to organize projects at any scale. Today, the Broad Institute includes within it the former WICGR and ICCB, as well as many new people, projects and activities.
The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory is a joint venture of the Departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Biology at MIT. Its laboratories moved in 2005 into their new building on Vassar Street, joining the McGovern Institute and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. The resources available to its members include all of the shared facilities available within Picower’s laboratories and the departments themselves; other MIT departments; and local affiliated research institutions, hospitals, and universities.
The mission of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research is to meet one of the great challenges of modern science — the development of a deep understanding of thought and emotion in terms of their realization in the brain. Utilizing both new technologies such as imaging and genetic manipulations, as well as established paradigms, the McGovern Institute will seek to advance the understanding of brain functions such as recognition, perception and decision-making.
