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Two CCB Postdocs awarded 2024 Beckman Postdoctoral Fellowships

Two CCB Postdocs awarded 2024 Beckman Postdoctoral Fellowships

April 24, 2024

On April 23, the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation announced the selection of its 2024 class of Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellows, individuals who underscore the Foundation's mission of supporting basic research in chemical sciences and chemical instrumentation. Awardees include Mason Lab postdoc Dan Laorenza and Lee Lab postdoc Paul Joseph Robinson. They were selected after a three-part review led by a panel of scientific experts.

The Foundation will award more than $4.3 million in funding over the next three years for 14 exceptional research fellows from 10...

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New research: A molecular ‘warhead’ against disease

New research: A molecular ‘warhead’ against disease

April 4, 2024

In the battle against cancer and other diseases, scientists are developing molecular weapons that can be used to stop uncontrollable cell growth.

A team of Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital scientists have found that “cyclimids,” a class of binding molecules known as ligands, offer a promising and efficient approach to removing disease-causing or malfunctioning proteins. Their distinct properties enable scientists to attack errant proteins at their molecular roots.

“For over a year we had been...

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New research: Messenger RNAs with multiple “tails” could lead to more effective therapeutics

New research: Messenger RNAs with multiple “tails” could lead to more effective therapeutics

April 3, 2024

Messenger RNA (mRNA) made its big leap into the public limelight during the pandemic, thanks to its cornerstone role in several COVID-19 vaccines. But mRNAs, which are genetic sequences that instruct the body to produce proteins, are also being developed as a new class of drugs. For mRNAs to have broad therapeutic uses, however, the molecules will need to last longer in the body than those that make up the COVID vaccines. 

Researchers from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and MIT have engineered a new mRNA structure by adding multiple “tails” to the molecules that...

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New research: Paving the Way for a New Class of Antibiotics

New research: Paving the Way for a New Class of Antibiotics

March 14, 2024

Harvard University chemist Daniel Kahne has spent much of his career studying the fundamentals of how bacteria thrive and evade attack.

His lab has a special interest in gram-negative bacteria, which have an outer membrane that many antibiotics cannot cross.

Among these bacteria is carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii, or CRAB. Designated by the World Health Organization as a “critical priority” for antibiotic development, CRAB kills hundreds of critically ill patients in the U.S....

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Yoshito Kishi, Morris Loeb Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus

FAS Memorial Minute for Yoshito Kishi, 85

March 12, 2024

At a meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on March 5, 2024, the following tribute to the life and service of the late Yoshito Kishi was spread upon the permanent records of the Faculty.

Yoshito “Yoshi” Kishi was a renowned chemist whose scientific advances in organic chemistry were among the most impactful in the history of the field.

Although Kishi left Japan for Harvard only a few years into his independent career, he made major contributions to his native land through his mentorship of several generations of Japanese synthetic chemists, many of...

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David A. Evans

FAS Memorial Minute for David Albert Evans, 81

February 27, 2024

At a meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on Feb. 6, 2024, the following tribute to the life and service of the late David Albert Evans was spread upon the permanent records of the Faculty.

David Albert Evans was one of the most influential organic chemists in the history of the field, and his impact was felt through his research, mentorship, and teaching.  He discovered practical and general ways to synthesize polyketides, a broad class of medicinally important natural products.  To crack this problem, he devised exquisitely simple yet broadly...

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