Researchers at Harvard University were recently awarded $2.1 million by the NIH for a project titled “Dissecting the Establishment and Regulation of Human Pluripotency.” The NIH RePORTER describes in detail the specifics of the project in the project’s abstract, written by the Harvard researchers:
“Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells have a tremendous potential for advancing our understanding of human development and disease. To help unlock this potential we have organized a program to (A) comprehensively identify the genetic and epigenetic components of the regulatory network that maintains cells in a pluripotent state; (B) characterize culture-induced variation in the activites of these components in pluripotent cells; and (C) characterize temporal variation in their activities during induction of pluripotency with defined factors. To achieve these goals, we have formulated four interdependent projects: Project I (Meissner) will (1) characterize transcriptional coregulators and small non-coding RNAs that modulate the activity of the core pluripotency transcription factors, and (2) define and isolate subpopulations from pluripotent cell cultures to characterize their transcriptional and epigenetic states.”
The project will be led by Harvard University researcher Alexander Meissner. According to the Harvard University website, the Meissner laboratory is a group of experimental and computational biologists working to use genomic tools to study developmental and stem cell biology, focusing specifically on epigenetic regulation. The NIH RePORTER goes into further detail of the Meissner laboratory’s project receiving this most recent NIH grant:
“Project II (Rinn) will characterize long non-coding RNAs expressed in pluripotent cells and elucidate their role in remodeling the epigenetic landscape during reprogramming. Project III (Mikkelsen) will characterize the cis-regulatory modules that direct activation, maintenace and repression of gene expression in pluripotent cells by recruiting transcription factors and their coregulators to key genomic loci. Project IV (Eggan) will characterize the inheritance patterns and maintenance of inactivated X chromosomes during reprogramming and in pluripotent cell cultures.”
Boston BioResearch Product Faire™ Event 2012
Certainly the $2.1 million from the NIH will go a long way for the Meissner laboratory. According to NSF and NIH research funding statistics, Harvard University is a very well-funded market in addition to this most recent grant. The NIH awarded Harvard University $392 million in 2012. For a full list of departments receiving NIH funding organized by department name, total funding awarded and number of awards received, please visit the NIH website. In 2012, the NSF also awarded Harvard University $55.3 million in research funding. This wealth of research funding is a great resource for lab suppliers interested in working to market life science equipment.
Given Harvard University’s latest NIH and NSF funding statistics, lab suppliers working to market life science equipment may want to exhibit at our upcoming Boston life science events held at Harvard University. Biotechnology Calendar, Inc. invites lab suppliers to meet with researchers, lab managers and purchasing agents at our Boston BioResearch Product Faire™ Event.
Biotechnology Calendar, Inc. is a full-service science research marketing and events-planning company that organizes life science marketing events at top research universities across the country. If you’d like to market life science equipment at life science events closer to home, we encourage you to view our 2013 calendar of events. For more funding statistics for Harvard University, or for more information on our Boston BioResearch Product Faire™ Event, click on the button below.
