all Gary Ruvkun stories

Researchers learn how mutations extend life span

50443248 — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:03:35 -0400

In the sense that organisms existing today are connected through a chain of life – through their parents, grandparents, and other ancestors – almost a billion years back to the first animals of the pre-Cambrian era, an animal’s reproductive cells can be considered to be immortal. These germline cells generate their offspring’s somatic cells – other cells involved in all aspects of growth, metabolism, and behavior, which have a set life span – and new germline cells that continue on, generation after generation.

Microbiologist Gary Ruvkun:

404132862 — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 13:31:00 -0500

Gary Ruvkun has made a career out of imagining the unimaginable, and of surrounding himself with like-minded thinkers who let the wheels of thought spin until they catch on something hard, gain traction, and take off.

Mass. researcheers win 'American Nobel Prize'

404132862 — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 12:22:14 -0400

Harvard Medical School, MGH researcher Gary Ruvkun to share 2008 Lasker Award

404132862 — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 19:06:07 -0400

Gary Ruvkun, a Harvard Medical School genetics professor in the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Computational and Integrative Biology, is one of three scientists named co-recipients of the 2008 Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research.

Harvard researchers selected for National Academy of Sciences membership

yvette — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:39:20 -0400

Eight Harvard faculty members this week were elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

Scientists identify hundreds of worm genes that regulate fat storage

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:28:29 -0400

Findings by Harvard researchers, published in the Jan. 16, 2003 issue of Nature, represent the first survey of an entire genome for all genes that regulate fat storage. The research team led by Gary Ruvkun, of the Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Molecular Biology, and postdoctoral fellow Kaveh Ashrafi identified about 400 genes encompassing a wide range of biochemical activities that control fat storage. These studies were conducted using the tiny roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, an organism that shares many genes with humans and has helped researchers gain insights into diseases as diverse as cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer's disease. Many of the fat regulatory genes identified in this study have counterparts in humans and other mammals. "This study is a major step in pinpointing fat regulators in the human genome," says Ruvkun, who is a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School. "Of the estimated 30,000 human genes, our study highlights about 100 genes as likely to play key roles in regulation of fat levels."

Tiny creatures offer clues to human aging

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:07:33 -0400

When its aging gene is not working right, a worm named C. elegans lives three times longer than normal, according to Harvard researcher Gary Ruvkun. The development gene keeps an animal forever youthful in the sense that it never develops into a reproducing adult. There is a corresponding human gene, opening up fascinating possibilities. Worms that have lost the function of their daf-2 gene live for the human equivalent of 240 years. "We didn't know how the worm gene actually regulates aging until we compared it with the human copy," Ruvkun says. The human gene is responsible for making a protein receptor in cells. This receptor is activated by insulin, and the activation converts blood sugar into energy. In C.

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First indications that aging may be regulated by brain

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:04:15 -0400

A little worm called Caenorhabditis elegans was the first creature to have all its genes sequenced, more than 19,000 of them. When the human genome was sequenced, researchers found that C. elegans shares about 40 percent of its genes with human beings. Two such genes — with potentially important consequences for humans — were recently discovered in the laboratory of Gary Ruvkun. One of the genes regulates the development from an egg to an adult in a whole Noah's ark of animals — jellyfish, fruit flies, zebra fish, mice, and, possibly, humans. The other regulates the life span of many animals.

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