All faculty who spoke are involved in interdisciplinary research, and all were asked to talk about how they chose their fields. Afterwards students and the speaker headed to dinner at a local restaurant, where they continued their conversations about research, MIT and life. Students were able to sign up for dinner with the speaker of their choice at a special web site. What people do care about is a cell cycle disease called cancer. Ordinary baker's yeast turns out to be such a good model for human cells that many researchers are studying the intricacies of its reproductive process.
Cancer is a disease of the cell cycle in which cell division has gone haywire.
Professor Weis-Amon described the advantages of using yeast in cancer research at a January 11 Spark Forum lecture. In the next 25 years, researchers would like to see a detailed molecular understanding of all proteins involved in the cell cycle, how the cycle is controlled by developmental signals, and assays for profiling individuals with increased susceptibility for certain types of cancer. No psychology applied. The 1950s and 1960s brought the theory of efficient markets and the practice of arbitrage. But psychology can dramatically affect how people behave in relation to financial markets, and it may help predict how markets will behave, Professor Mullainathan said.