Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine (PCMM)
The Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine (PCMM), is a research program at Boston Children's Hospital (BCH) recognized worldwide for its discoveries that increase the body's ability to fight disease and to heal. The breakthroughs of PCMM scientists are greatly increasing our understanding of the influence of immune defense and inflammation on medical discovery, healthcare, and disease management. PCMM officially joined seven other interdisciplinary programs at Boston Children's Hospital in October 2012 with the goal of increasing collaborations and scientific synergies. Our investigators are academically affiliated with Harvard Medical School.
We pursue six (at least) primary areas of research:
- Adhesion molecules and inflammation
- Autoimmunity and allergy
- Genetics of immunodeficiency and cancer
- Immune defenses against infectious diseases, viruses, and tumors
- Stem Cells
- Structural Biology
Featured News Stories
Getting a grip on genetic loops
Announcements
Fred Alt, Hidde Ploegh, and Richard Flavell named Distinguished Fellows of the American Association of Immunologists
The American Association of Immunologists has named PCMM Director and Senior Investigator Fred Alt, Charles A. Janeway Professor of Pediatrics and Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at BCH, and PCMM Senior Investigator Hidde Ploegh as members of the Distinguished Fellows of American Association of Immunologists, Class of 2020. Also among the latest class of AAI Distinguished Fellows is PCMM Scientific Advisory Board member Richard Flavell, Sterling Professor of Immunobiology at Yale School of Medicine and Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Selection as a Distinguished Fellow is one of the highest honors bestowed by AAI, presented to members who have been active 25 or more years and have made outstanding contributions to science, demonstrating such qualities as “excellence in research accomplishment in the field of immunology; exceptional leadership to the immunology community in academia, foundations, nonprofits, industry, or government at a national or international level; notable distinction as an educator.”
PCMM congratulates Fred, Hidde, and Richard on this achievement!
Hao Wu and TJ Ha honored as 2020 Biophysical Society Fellows
The Biophysical Society has named Hao Wu, PCMM Senior Investigator and Asa and Patricia Springer Professor Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology and Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and Taekjip (TJ) Ha, the newest member of the PCMM Scientific Advisory Board and Bloomberg Distinguished Professor, Professor of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, as 2020 Society Fellows.
The award honors members who have supported the society, demonstrated scientific excellence, and expanded the field of biophysics. Hao was honored “for fundamentally revising how we view intracellular signaling and cellular organization, through discovering supramolecular ‘signalosomes’ formed by innate immune signaling proteins, mechanisms that govern cooperative assembly, and proximity-driven enzyme activation.” TJ was honored “for his contributions to single molecule biophysics approaches which have furthered our understanding of complex interacting biological systems.” All six newly elected Society Fellows were honored at Biophysical Society’s 64th Annual Meeting on February 17 at the San Diego Convention Center in California.
PCMM congratulates Hao and TJ for achieving this honor!
Sun Hur promoted to Professor
The PCMM is most pleased to congratulate PCMM Investigator Dr. Sun Hur on her promotion to Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. She is also being proposed for an appointment as Professor of Pediatrics. Sun came to PCMM as a theoretical chemist and X-ray crystallographer, and here focused her lab upon a key question in immunology and biology more generally: how self vs. non-self nucleic acids are distinguished in the host cell to lead to appropriate innate immune responses.
Her work has revealed the importance of filament formation of nucleic acid sensors in self vs. non-self discrimination and transmission of innate immune signaling, as well as the molecular mechanisms of RNA-receptor interactions. A picture has emerged from this work in which each receptor multimerization step in the RNA sensing signaling pathway provides a specificity checkpoint that insures correct initiation of the antiviral response, and the efficiency of RNA-receptor interactions fine tunes the balance between immunity and tolerance.
Sun was named a Massachusetts Life Sciences Center New Investigator in 2009 and a Pew Biomedical Scholar in 2010. In 2015, she received the prestigious Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science and was named a Burroughs Wellcome Investigator in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease. Earlier this year, she received an NIH Director’s Pioneer Award. Sun will be nominated to become the first incumbent of the endowed Oscar M. Schloss MD Professorship at Harvard Medical School, based in PCMM and the BCH Department of Pediatrics. There will be more news in the near future.
We are thrilled to have Sun Hur as a PCMM colleague!
Chromatin loops unlock antibody class switching
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Researchers in the laboratory of Frederick Alt of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine (PCMM) at Children's Hospital Boston continue their groundbreaking work at the nexus of genetics and immunology, specifically the response of antigen-activated B cells to the enormous variety of possible threats, including bacteria, viruses, and parasites. Two reports from the Alt Lab in Nature (the first in September 2019 and a second online on October 30, 2019 with a Nature “News and Views” covering both) present major advances in chromatin regulation, showing that two distinct types of antibody gene recombination, occurring at different developmental stages, both depend upon reeling long loops of chromatin past recombination centers to align substrate gene segments in the processes known as V(D)J recombination and class switch recombination (CSR). |
Fred Alt Received AAI-BioLegend Herzenberg Award
Congratulations to Dr. Frederick W. Alt for receiving the BioLegend Herzenberg Award from the American Association for Immunologists (AAI). Established to honor the memory of AAI member Leonard A. Herzenberg Ph.D., this award recognizes investigator who has made outstanding for outstanding contributions to the field of Immunology in the area of B cell biology. This award is generously supported by BioLegend
