In the new study, the researchers, led by the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Mass.

WSJ: Researchers Identify Anonymous DNA Donors

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and the president and fellows of Harvard College were co-plaintiffs in the case.

FORBES: Magazine Article

But it is a big jump from the 20-person lab Kim runs at MIT's prestigious Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research to Merck, where he'll be in charge of more than 4, 500 research personnel.

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In a different study released earlier this year, researcher Yaniv Erlich at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was also able to re-identify almost 50 people participating in a different genomic study.

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Rudolf Jaenisch. (Applause.) The 2010 National Medal of Science to Rudolph Jaenisch, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for improving our understanding of epigenetic regulation of gene expression, the biological mechanisms that affect how genetic information is variably expressed.

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