[1] In 1999, Rowitch joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School as an assistant professor of pediatrics and established his laboratory at Dana–Farber Cancer Institute, where he led foundational work on the genetics of neuron and glia differentiation.
[10][11] Subsequent work from his group demonstrated that Olig2 is also present in diffuse gliomas,[12] suggesting that primary brain tumor progression can share molecular mechanisms with normal neurodevelopment, such as Sonic hedgehog signaling.
[15] His laboratory has helped to establish the importance of oligodendrocyte progenitor cells in promoting postnatal angiogenesis in white matter by delaying myelination until the appropriate developmental time via hypoxia-inducible factor activity and canonical Wnt signaling.
[16][17] Rowitch was the primary investigator of a first-in-human clinical trial funded by StemCells, Inc. to transplant neural stem cells directly into the brains of patients with Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease (PMD).
[18] Dermal fibroblasts donated by the patients were also studied to reveal that iron toxicity is primarily responsible for oligodendrocyte death in early-onset PMD, and that treatment with deferiprone could rescue myelination in vitro and in mice.