It has been an action-packed pandemic for the Broad Institute, the biomedical research center in Cambridge with ties to both Harvard and MIT.
First, the Broad set up one of the country’s first large-scale COVID-19 test processing facilities. Since March 2020, it has run more than 10 million tests for the state, nursing homes, universities, the Cambridge Public School system, and homeless shelters. The number of tests may be more than any other non-commercial lab has analyzed — though no one is certain.
Then, in mid-January, President Biden chose the Broad’s founder and director, Eric Lander, as his science adviser. The Broad quickly elevated Todd Golub, another founder and its chief scientific officer, to director.
