[upbeat jazz music]
[Jing-Ke Weng, Whitehead Institute Member] Now is a really exciting time to rediscover the wisdom deposited over thousands of years
throughout the whole entire world using plants as herbal remedies.
In the old days, it was very hard to study a plant which has no genetic tools.
Nowadays, we can easily sequence the whole entire genome
and all the genes expressed in any tissue from these medicinal plants
and from that sequence, the datasets, easily identify the genes encoding those enzymes
that are responsible for manufacturing these interesting molecules
that can eventually be made into medicine.
[Ben Sabari, Postdoctoral fellow, Young Lab] The previous model suggested that there were these lock-and-key interactions between proteins
But there's something on top of that
that's allowing for this big reservoir of material to be collected and concentrated at specific locations.
[Ann Boija, Postdoctoral researcher, Young Lab] They're forming these round, spherical droplets that settle on the glass,
and they can fuse together to form these condensates.
It's amazing.
[Alessandra Dall'Agnese, Postdoctoral researcher, Young Lab] We can target them
and destroy these liquid droplets where they are not supposed to be.
[Isaac Klein, Postdoctoral fellow, Young Lab] Those treatments are not going to be found by looking in the old places.
So looking somewhere new that I think is really promising is probably the most exciting part.
[Naama Kanarek, Postdoctoral researcher, Sabatini Lab] It was first found by Sidney Farber here in Boston
more than sixty years ago.
We can use a CRISPR screen and ask,
instead of focusing on what is known about methotrexate, we can ask what is unknown about methotrexate?
If we can improve therapy through any modification of something as simple as an amino acid —
we have it in our eggs, we have it in our chicken that we eat, right?
Things that are as simple as that are always promising to us.
