Bauer Center To Lead DNA Work

The human genome sequence may be complete, but scientists are years away from understanding how all 40,000 genes function and interact.

Harvard hopes that those discoveries will be made at the Bauer Center for Genomics Research (CGR) in its newly-built home on Divinity Avenue.

The new building, parts of which remain under construction, was officially unveiled last month. Charles T. Bauer ’42 financed the 60,000-square-foot building bridging the Naito Chemical Lab and the Fairchild Biochemistry Building with a $25 million gift, one of the largest in Harvard’s history.

The CGR, begun by Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Jeremy R. Knowles in the fall of 1999, will combine experts from biology, chemistry, mathematics, physics and computer science to make sense of the mountain of raw genetic data now available.

“We want to build a collaborative environment that will enable us to devise new techniques that will enable individual scientists to answer what is happening to all the DNA molecules, all the RNA molecules and all the proteins in a cell,” the Bauer Center’s Director Andrew W. Murray said.

All of the research at the CGR will be conducted by its 10 fellows from various disciplines. Currently it has six biologists, two mathematicians, and is interested in bringing in two more fellows in physics and computer science.

“The fellows of the Genomic Center are the brightest and best young scientists men and women who are going to work to cross disciplinary boundaries to answer the big questions,” Murray said.

The fellowship is the first new academic position created at Harvard in 30 years, according to Murray. Fellows are not faculty members but can conduct independent research, apply for their own grants, and monitor post-doctoral students.

“Fellows have the independence of faculty without worrying about teaching, tenure, or administrative responsibilities,” said Laura Garwin, the CGR Director of Research Affairs.

Steve Altschuler and Lani Wu, a husband-and-wife-team, are the CGR’s two non-biologists. The mathematicians, who had developed algorithms at Microsoft and worked in bioinformactics companies before coming to the Center, hope to apply mathematical models and software to biological problems.

Wu and Altschuler have had to bone up on their biology to join the collaborative effort. They audit the undergraduate classes Biological Science 52 and 54.

“It’s not enough to be interdisciplinary within the center, we want to catalyze interactions between disciplines and to help break down the walls between Harvard departments,” said Garwin.

Weekly genomics talks geared towards educating scientists from all backgrounds in everything from physics to the history of science is another way the Center works to foster interdisciplinary collaboration.

“I don’t think there is another forum that would bring a historian and molecular biologist together,” said Garwin.

The Bauer Center will also engage in interdepartmental collaboration with the Institute of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and the Molecular Targeting Lab, a planned facility that will build and catalogue a large library of chemicals to help identify proteins involved in disease.

In addition to its research, the CGR will aid genomics work throughout the University.

It makes microarrays—tools for analyzing the activity of thousands of genes at the same time—for its own use and for over one hundred Harvard research groups.

The Center will also house a Bioinformatics Lobby where Harvard researchers have access to a “cluster” of 60 high speed Linux computers capable of quickly analyzing gene expression data.

The Lobby will serve as the training center for Harvard researchers to learn the techniques of genomics.

Additionally, Murray hopes to offer a class in the Core Curriculum on genomics and society which would use some of the facilities of the Bauer Laboratory, according to Garwin.

The building is based on an open concept. Glass windows facing courtyards to the North and South will make the building completely transparent to passers-by.