Rudolf Jaenisch

Dr. Rudolf Jaenisch is Professor of Biology at the Whitehead Institute and the Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has generated the first transgenic mice carrying exogenous DNA in the germ line and was the first to use insertional mutagenesis for identifying genes crucial for embryonic development. Perhaps his most fundamental contributions have been in the study of epigenetic processes during development. In particularly he showed that methylation of DNA plays important roles in gene expression, imprinting and X-inactivation as well as in diseases such as cancer and mental retardation. His work has focused on mammalian cloning and has defined some of the molecular mechanisms that are crucial for the nuclear reprogramming. Most recently he is using direct reprogramming of somatic cells to generate “induced Pluripotent Stem” (iPS) cells in the culture dish. These cells are relevant to establish in vitro system to study major human diseases and eventually to derive cells that could be used for “customized” therapy.