Laura Johnston, Professor of Genetics and Development at Columbia University, has been named to the Rita Allen Foundation Scientific Advisory Committee. Johnston has been recognized for her work elucidating the processes by which cells communicate their fitness and compete for territory in developing tissues, which have surprising similarities…

A salute to the leadership, passion and discoveries of pioneering Rita Allen Foundation Scholars…

Susan Dymecki, Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, has been named to the Rita Allen Foundation Scientific Advisory Committee. The Committee consists of leading scientists and clinicians from outstanding research institutions. Drawing on their collective experiences in medical discovery and development, members of the Committee…

Early in his research career, Jeffrey Macklis set out to unite two seemingly disparate fields of neuroscience: neural development and brain repair. At the time, this was an unorthodox idea, and “being a brain repair guy was a little shady,” he says. Still, he thought, “if we figured…

Early on in his medical training, Douglas Fearon relished the “scientific problem solving” required to find effective treatments for patients. But as he progressed through his medical degree, internship and residency at Johns Hopkins University, Fearon also grew frustrated by the inability to truly cure diseases.

Growing up in London, Thomas Jessell was immersed in both art and science from an early age. His mother worked as a paintings conservator, while his grandfather was an organic chemist who introduced him to the beauty of molecular structures. “I was torn between whether to train as…

A conversation with Arnold Levine, Honorary Chair of the Rita Allen Foundation Scholars 40th Anniversary Meeting and former Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee Arnold Levine got his start in science as a microbiologist, applying new tools from the nascent field of molecular biology to examine how…