Rudolf Jaenisch

Biography

Rudolf is a founding member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and Professor of Biology at MIT. He is a pioneer of transgenic science, in which an animal’s genetic makeup is altered. His work focuses on understanding epigenetic regulation of gene expression (the biological mechanisms that affect how genetic information is converted into cell structures but that don’t alter the genes in the process). Most recently, this work has led to major advances in our understanding of embryonic stem cells and “induced pluripotent stem” (IPS) cells, which appear identical to embryonic stem cells but can be created from adult cells without using an egg.

Research Interest

biochemistry