Steve Ramirez and Eran Hodis are making an impact in very different areas of science, working in labs only a short walk apart in Cambridge’s Kendall Square. The two BU graduates are among six who made the Forbes “30 Under 30” list of young “game changers, movers, and makers” in fields such as business, sports, and science.

Ramirez (CAS’10), 27, a neuroscience researcher and PhD candidate at MIT, earned a spot on the list for his work altering the memories of mice, which could have implications for humans in areas such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Hodis (CAS’07), 29, a cancer researcher and an MD/PhD student at Harvard, was named for his work identifying significant genetic mutations in cancer cells, which could lead to better treatments for the disease and eventually unravel its causes.

Hodis works at the Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, and Ramirez works around the corner at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory.

The mouse memory breakthrough by Ramirez and his colleague Xu Liu began with their placing a mouse in a box long enough to form a benign memory of the box and then identifying the brain cells associated with that memory. The following day, the researchers put the mouse in a different box and gave it a mild electrical shock—while simultaneously using a laser on those same brain cells to trigger its memory of the first box. On the third day, the mouse was returned to the first box and immediately froze in fear, as if expecting to be shocked. The researchers had implanted in the mouse’s brain a memory of being shocked in a box where there had been no shock.

They began their experiments using a fear response, because it offers the clearest results, but Ramirez says they’ve now moved in a different direction. “We take animals that show certain symptoms that look like depression,” he says, “and we try to reverse those symptoms or alleviate them by artificially reactivating positive memories in their brain.”

Eran Hodis works at the Broad Institute, identifying mutations that contribute to cells’ runaway growth. Photo by Moti Hodis

And while their work has been likened to science fiction—usually the movie Inception—Ramirez says it has tremendous potential in treating PTSD and other memory-related conditions. Their successes have already brought the team national media recognition and a TED Talk.

The work that brought Hodis to Forbes’ attention was an analysis of reams of data that helped identify worrisome mutations in melanoma cells. With colleague Franklin W. Huang, Hodis found two mutations that could contribute to cells’ runaway growth, and that happen to be among the most common mutations in all of cancer.

“In melanoma, you have one of the highest mutation rates of any cancer,” says Hodis. “You’re looking at hundreds to thousands of mutations in protein-coding genes per sample. The real question is, which of those mutations are crucial to forming the cancer?”

Hodis has since worked on projects identifying mutations in the RNF43 gene that may drive 20 percent of endometrial and colorectal cancers.

Other BU alums on the Forbes’ list: in the sports category, Michael Kasparian (ENG’12,’14), cofounder of Atlas Wearables, which makes fitness trackers providing 3-D body tracking and advanced data analytics, and Arian Radmand (CAS’08), cofounder of CoachUp, an app connecting athletes to private coaches in their sport; in marketing and advertising, James “Nooka” Jones (COM’10), marketing manager for Google Creative Lab; and in games, Dave Bisceglia (Questrom’09), cofounder of Tap Lab, which makes location-aware mobile games such as Bigfoot Hunter.