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Today, Robert G. Edwards, a British physiologist who spent much of his career at Cambridge University, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for developing in vitro fertilization (IVF), a technique used to help people conceive children. The procedure involves mixing eggs and sperm in a laboratory dish, and then returning the embryo to the womb to resume development.

The focus of last night’s Midsummer Nights' Science Lecture at the Broad lecture was diabetes –a disease that affects more than 171 million people worldwide. Bridget Wagner, a group leader in pancreatic biology and metabolic disease in the Chemical Biology Program at the Broad Institute, spoke about the past and present of diabetes, as well as her group’s progress towards identifying small molecules that may someday be used to control diabetes.

While the rate of major psychiatric diseases, such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and major depression, affect approximately 3 percent of the human population, one particularly unlucky Scottish family was plagued with a 27 percent rate of occurrence. One family’s burden became a scientist’s treasure, as researchers had an unparalleled opportunity to identify underlying genetic causes of psychiatric disease.