Projects

The Broad Institute scientific community pursues a wide range of biomedical projects, from individual investigator studies to major genomic efforts. Some of the major projects below illustrate the breadth of the institute's work.

iconClinical Proteomic Technology Assessment for Cancer (CPTAC)
Long before noticeable symptoms surface, proteins in the blood can serve as early harbingers of diseases, including cancer. While such “biomarkers” have the potential to improve cancer diagnosis and treatment, realizing that promise requires sensitive, standardized methods for measuring protein levels. As part of the CPTAC program funded by the National Cancer Institute, Broad Institute researchers are leading an effort to set standards for protein biomarker analysis and to implement new technologies for detecting them in clinical samples.

iconMammalian and Model Organism Genomes
With the successful completion of the Human Genome Project, the challenge is now to understand the instructions encoded in the human genome. This NIH-funded project aims to exploit the power of evolution by sequencing the genomes of 16 mammals (including chimpanzee, dog, elephant, rabbit, guinea pig, and opossum) and analyzing the DNA sequences that have been conserved across tens of millions of years of evolution. The goal is a comprehensive atlas of the functional and structural elements in the human genome.

iconThe RNAi Consortium
The RNAi Consortium is a collaboration of industry and academia to generate a library of small inhibitory RNAs (RNAi) against human and mouse genes. This powerful genomic tool, which provides a systematic way to discover the role of every gene, will be shared with the entire scientific community.

iconInitiative for Chemical Genetics
This National Cancer Institute-funded project makes it possible for scientists throughout the United States to perform high-throughput screening to find molecules that modulate cellular functions. Broad scientists are integrating this information to identify powerful new research tools as well as potential targets for therapeutic intervention.

iconMicrobial Sequencing Center
The Broad Institute is one of two centers funded by the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Disease to serve as a national resource for sequencing and analyzing microbial genomes. The center is studying more than 100 pathogens (fungi, bacteria, parasites, vectors and related species). The publicly available data are the basis for research on pathogenicity, drug resistance, disease transmission, and vaccine development, and will contribute to global efforts to improve detection, prevention and treatment of microbial infections.

iconImmune Circuits
The goal of the Immune Circuits project is to use the RNAi library generated by The RNAi Consortium to understand the signaling network that immune cells utilize during an immune response. The power of loss-of-function screening and the synergy that will result from many simultaneous screens will allow Immune Circuits scientists to address many outstanding questions about normal and pathological immune responses.

iconInternational Haplotype Map Project
This project aims to provide a comprehensive guide to human genetic variation in a form that can be used to carry out comprehensive surveys for causes of disease. The project grew from fundamental discoveries about the structure of variation in the human genome and is now an international collaboration involving centers in six countries.

iconCancer Genome Project
The Cancer Genome Project aims to build a complete catalogue of the genetic alterations frequently seen in each type of cancer. This knowledge will transform the fight against cancer — by sorting cancer into homogeneous categories, revealing the specific molecular defects in each case and thereby pointing the way to targeted diagnostics and therapeutics.

iconDiabetes Genetics Initiative
In collaboration with colleagues at Lund University in Sweden and the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, this projects aims to analyze the inherited genetic variation in 10,000 patients with adult-onset diabetes. The aim is to both reveal fundamental mechanisms of disease and to identify potential new therapeutic targets.

iconFungal Genome Initiative
This initiative, a partnership between Broad and the fungal research community, aims to provide the sequence of key organisms and their related species across the fungal kingdom and thus to lay the foundation for work in medicine, agriculture, and industry through comparative studies.

iconConnectivity Map
The Connectivity Map is an integrated database containing the genetic signatures resulting from pharmaceutics, gene inhibitors and disease states. Using computational tools to compare the signatures, the goal is to systematically reveal connections among drugs, genes and diseases to accelerate biological understanding and therapeutic development.

iconBroad/NCRR Center for Genotyping Analysis
With the completion of the Human Genome Project and development of public databases of genetic variation an unprecedented opportunity exists to identify genetic risk factors that contribute in a causal manner to human disease. This requires combining a growing suite of high-throughput laboratory and computational tools with large, well-characterized patient collections. Through a grant from the NCRR, the Broad Institute is able to offer external researchers access to our laboratory and analytic resources for SNP genotyping.