Relationship to Other Departments and Institutes at Harvard
In addition to the Department of Genetics, there are eight other basic science departments at the Harvard Medical School: Microbiology and Immunobiology, Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology,Cell Biology, Systems Biology, Neurobiology, Health Care Policy, Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology (SCRB), and Global Health and Social Medicine. Our faculty are linked by our common participation in trans-departmental graduate programs and by significant overlap in biological interests. There are a large number of fruitful collaborations and regularly scheduled joint research meetings on a variety of topics crossing departmental lines and knitting us into a single highly-interactive community.As noted earlier, we have important ties to colleagues with appointments in clinical departments.
While geography dictates that interactions across the Harvard campuses are, by their nature, less spontaneous, we have significant common research interests with colleagues in the Departments of Molecular and Cellular Biology,Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, and Chemistry and Biological Anthropology within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge. We also share common pursuits with faculty in the School of Public Health, the School of Dental Medicine and the School of Engineering. A number of Centers and Institutes have been established to facilitate interactions between faculty in these different academic homes. Several are of particular note in this context: theHarvard Partners Center for Genetics and Genomics (HPCGG) provides cores and activity supporting translational genetics at Brigham & Women's Hospital, the MGH and the Department of Genetics. The Broad Institute, of which many Department faculty are Associate Members, provides access to cutting edge technology and organizes regular meetings drawing together scientists engaged in genetic science from academic institutions throughout the Boston area. The Harvard Stem Cell Institute provides a framework promoting the integration of stem cell science throughout Harvard University. Most recently, a Harvard-wide Committee on Human Genetics has been established to promote and integrate both clinical and genetic research efforts focusing on human biology.