Dr. David P. Bartel, Ph.D., serves as an Associate Professor at Whitehead Institute for Medical Research. Dr. Bartel served as a Member of Scientific Advisory Board at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Firefly BioWorks, Inc. Dr. Bartel isProfessor of Biology at MIT, Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and member of the Whitehead Institute. Dr. Bartel has made major contributions to recent advances in understanding the role of micro-RNAs (miRNAs) in gene regulation. His lab is uncovering both the widespread influence of miRNAs on metazoan gene expression and the roles that miRNAs play during growth and development of plants and animals. He developed a methodology to accurately predict the regulatory targets of miRNAs in both plants and animals and ascertained the molecular consequences and biological roles of miRNA regulation. The results of this research indicate that more than half of human protein-coding genes are conserved regulatory targets of miRNAs and that the miRNA-mediated regulation of one of these genes is important for preventing human cancers. He also discovered heterochromatic siRNAs, which direct DNA silencing and other types of small regulatory RNAs. Dr. Bartel served as a Member of Scientific Advisory Board at Regulus Therapeutics Inc. until June 7, 2016.

 Cancer