The Dean of Science, Professor Marc Kastner, has announced that Professor Sylvia Ceyer has agreed to serve as the Head of the Department of Chemistry for a five year term commencing July 1, 2010. In making the announcement, he said, ”the Chemistry Department has a long history of leadership in research and education, and I know that Sylvia is dedicated to maintaining and even enhancing that outstanding record. I look forward to helping her do so.”

The Dean also took the opportunity to thank Professor Timothy Swager for his great service to the Department over the past five years.

Professor Ceyer subsequently announced that Professor John Essigmann has agreed to serve as Associate Head of the Department of Chemistry for a 5 year term effective July 1, 2010.

This year’s Welch Award recipients, Professor JoAnne Stubbe, Novartis Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Biology at MIT, and Professor Christopher T. Walsh, Hamilton Kuhn Professor of Biological Chemistry and Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School, have helped explain how enzymes, proteins that act as catalysts to speed up reactions millions-fold, have evolved to carry out difficult and ingenious chemistry critical to life. Their basic research has laid the groundwork for therapeutic advances in medicine, particularly the treatment of cancer.

“These two scientists, long-time friends who share a passion for knowledge, have made hugely important contributions to our understanding of the chemistry of biological functions in the enzymes that make life possible. Their work has led to new therapeutic treatments, including new antibiotics and new cancer treatments, among other advances that improve the quality of life,” said Ernest H. Cockrell, Chair of The Welch Foundation, at the Awards Ceremony held May 13, 2010. Go to MIT News >>

Andre Kosmrlj, Elizabeth L. Read, Ying Qi, Todd M. Allen, Marcus Altfeld, Steven G. Deeks, Florencia Pereyra, Mary Carrington, Bruce D. Walker, Arup K. Chakraborty

Nature advance online publication 5 May 2010 doi:10.1038/nature08997

In the late 1990s, researchers showed that a very high percentage of those naturally HIV-immune people, who represent about one in 200 infected individuals, carry a gene called HLA B57. Now a team of researchers from the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, MIT and Harvard has revealed a new effect that contributes to this gene’s ability to confer immunity.The research team, led by MIT Professor Arup Chakraborty and Harvard Professor Bruce Walker at MGH, found that the HLA B57 gene causes the body to make more potent killer T cells — white blood cells that help defend the body from infectious invaders. Go to MIT homepage >>

MIT chemists have designed a way to fluorescently label proteins that could shed light on protein functions never before seen.

Ting Lab: Since the 1990s, a green fluorescent protein known simply as GFP has revolutionized cell biology. Originally found in a Pacific Northwest jellyfish, GFP allows scientists to visualize proteins inside of cells and track them as they go about their business. Two years ago, biologists who discovered and developed the protein as a laboratory tool won a Nobel Prize for their work.

However, using GFP as a fluorescent probe has one major drawback — the protein is so bulky that it can interfere with the proteins it’s labeling, preventing them from doing their normal tasks or reaching their intended destinations. Go to MIT News>>