Welcome to the Yamashita Lab

We are located in the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and are part of the Biology Department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Some of our favorite current questions include:

When a stem cell divides, what determines which daughter cell will remain a stem cell and which will differentiate into another tissue type?

What is the function of pericentromeric satellite DNA, which has been regarded as genomic junk?

What allows the germline its immortality, and can immortality be given to other cells?

What genomic and nuclear features maintain “hybrid incompatibility” – that is, the inability of gametes of different species to give rise to fertile offspring?

How do small RNAs make big decisions in germline development?