HSCI scientists enter the ‘Shark Tank’ and all emerge winners
The ABC reality competition Shark Tank came to Brigham and Women’s Hospital, as show host and businessman Kevin O’Leary, MBA, and his ‘sharks’ heard pitches from eight scientists to determine which of their research projects would receive up to $50,000 of seed funding. Three HSCI faculty members participated and all were named winners:
- Benjamin Humphreys, MD, PhD, was recognized for his project targeting fibrosis in the heart and kidneys.
- Jeff Karp, PhD, won with his pitch to help inflammatory bowel disease through controlling gut bacteria.
- Tracy Young-Pearse, PhD, presented on why some regions of the brain are resistant to Alzheimer’s disease, earning her one of the finalist seed grants.
Stem cell startup a finalist in Dean’s Challenge competition
Platelet Biogenesis, a startup born in the Harvard Medical School laboratory of Joseph Italiano, Jr., PhD, was named a finalist in the second annual Deans’ Health & Life Sciences Challenge. The Harvard-wide competition, which includes a “Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine” category because of HSCI, calls on students and postdoctoral fellows to develop technologies that will ultimately improve patient care. Platelet Biogenesis’s strategy was to develop a chip that quickly generates human platelets, which assist with blood clotting, from patient-derived stem cells.
HSCI names fifth MD/PhD fellow
Adrian Veres, a graduate of Harvard College, is the 2014-15 recipient of the HSCI Medical Scientist Training Fellowship award. Veres, an MD/PhD candidate at Harvard Medical School, comes from a systems biology lab where he used experimental and computational methods to study antibiotic resistance. He currently works in Doug Melton’s laboratory using single-cell RNA sequencing to map cell fates and high throughput screens to manipulate cell fate decisions. Veres’ fellowship is made possible by a bequest from Jack and Ruthe B. Cowl, specifically intended to support Harvard-MIT MD/ PhD students pursuing stem cell science and its applications.