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

Previous
A team out of the MIT, the Janelia Research Campus of the HHMI, Harvard Medical School HMS and Boston Children’s Hospital, describes a technique capable of imaging whole brains at exquisitely high resolution
Scientists from Boston Children’s Hospital and UC San Francisco describe a new way to create customized mouse models for studying the brain.
Studying blood samples from patients treated for malaria at a clinical field station in Brazil’s Amazon jungle, a team of Brazilian and American researchers has made a surprising discovery that could open the door to a new vaccine.
Researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital have reported a new cloning technique that has yielded the highest efficiency ever reported in mouse cloning, capable of producing 13 to 16 times more mouse pups than previous methods.
A new discovery about the spatial orientation and physical interactions of our genes provides a promising step forward in our ability to design custom antibodies. This, in turn, could revolutionize the fields of vaccine development and infection control.
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Getting a grip on genetic loops

 
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Announcements

Sun Hur, PhDSun 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.

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Chromatin loops unlock antibody class switching

 

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).
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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