Cissé receives $2.34 million New Innovator Award from the National Institutes of Health

Assistant Professor Ibrahim Cissé of the MIT Department of Physics has been awarded a five-year, $2.34 million grant as one of several recipients nationwide of a 2014 Director’s New Innovator Award of the National Institutes of Health. The grant will support the study of transcription with single-molecule resolution in live mammalian cells.
 
Transcription is the first step in cellular reproduction: when genetic information in DNA is made into an RNA copy. In high-complexity organisms (such as humans), little is understood of how transcription is carried out at the cellular level. In living cells, collective behaviors emerge from weak and transient biological interactions that are difficult to detect in conventional cell imaging methods. Ultimately, the goal is to develop new imaging methods that uncover what roles weak and transient interactions play in regulating gene expression in single living cells.
 
​The NIH Director's New Innovator Award was launched in 2007 to support unusually creative new investigators, and to stimulate highly innovative research that has the potential for significant impact.