Research

For students interested in science, getting started in a research laboratory can be daunting. Finding a lab, approaching a faculty member, designing experiments, and even knowing what questions to ask can be unfamiliar territory—particularly for first...

Harvard researchers have unveiled a new way to map the molecular activity in complex tissues that can reveal which specific RNA variants genes produce in every cell and every region of the tissue. The technology, described in a new paper in Cell, could...

When something goes wrong deep inside a cell’s power plant, the consequences can ripple across an entire organism. Mitochondria rely on a small molecule called coenzyme Q (CoQ) to generate energy and protect cells from damage. But the way cells...

In the race to build a biomanufacturing economy, one of the most stubborn obstacles is surprisingly mundane: getting enough gas into a tank of liquid. From pharmaceuticals to alternative proteins, many technologies depend on microbes that need to breathe...

Emily Balskus, Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of Chemistry and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, has recieved the 2026 Ono Pharma Foundation Breakthrough Science Initiative Award. Her project is entitled "Developing chemical probes to...

Lizbeth Ibarra grew up next to an oil refinery, and every day she saw its impact on her community of Richmond in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her family and friends suffered from asthma and other respiratory illnesses. School days were sometimes cancelled...

It was DNA replication that first captured Isaac Witte’s scientific imagination as a high school student in Overland Park, Kansas. “It’s this orchestration of so many different proteins and molecules that come together to do this core element of life,” he...

Throughout the history of biology, numerous discoveries stemmed from observing living systems, but seeing the innerworkings of living organisms presents challenges. Xiaowei Zhuang, David B. Arnold Professor of Science, has spent her career developing...

For years, a protein inside our cells has quietly powered billions of dollars’ worth of cancer drugs. Now a team of researchers have discovered that this workhorse protein, called cereblon, in addition to its known functions, can also fine‑tune which...

Laboratories turned to a smart workaround when COVID‑19 testing kits became scarce in 2020. They mixed samples from several patients and ran a single test. If the test came back negative, everyone in it was cleared at once. If it was positive, follow-up...