At a Medical School faculty meeting that attracted nearly 200 people, Harvard President Drew Faust (right) met with Dean Jeffrey Flier in a conversation about the economy, future of science, and global health. She also took questions from the faculty and other guests, including heads of affiliated institutions and administrative and student leaders.

Among the recent awards to HMS, HSDM, and HSPH faculty members through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act were 24 Grand Opportunities (GO) grants to be based at the Quad or an affiliated hospital. The one-year funding total is nearly $40 million, with a second-year expected to reach a similar level. Stimulus funding to the Quad also includes a $15 million grant to Harvard Catalyst to lead the development of a national research resource discovery network.

Much is known about the familiar double-helix structure of a strand of DNA, but how does this twisted thread crumple into the tight space of a cell’s nucleus without becoming a knotted mess? The question has had a longstanding but unsatisfying answer: it doesn’t. New work from the lab of Eric Lander, described in the October 9 Science, however, suggests a model for DNA folding that doesn’t resemble a ball of yarn after hours of cat play. Rather, it folds into a dense but knot free structure called a fractal globule.

Deans Julio Frenk (left) and David Hunter delivered the Eighth Annual State of the School Address at HSPH on Oct. 5, their first as deans. They provided an overview of the School’s financial status, research priorities, reorganizational efforts and important milestones.

Cancer drugs take advantage of natural defense mechanisms in dividing cells in order to kill them. With experiments aimed at both basic biological and therapeutic questions, Hsiao-Chun Huang and colleagues in the lab of Timothy Mitchison (pictured) gained insight into how triggering one of these defense mechanisms might kill tumor cells more effectively than a more common approach. The findings, which appear in the Oct. 6 Cancer Cell, suggest an improved design strategy for cancer therapeutics.