News & HighlightsNews
Moritz Armbruster
B.S.E., The Cooper Union Dissecting Synaptic Vesicle Endocytosis presented by Timothy A. Ryan Moritz Armbruster was born in Stuttgart, Germany, and moved to the desert in Tempe, Arizona, when he was seven years old. Coming from a mathematically inclined family, he moved to New York and studied ...
Pablo Ariel
Pablo Ariel Licenciado, Universidad de Buenos Aires Exploring Synaptic Vesicle Exocytosis presented by Timothy A. Ryan Pablo Ariel was born in Buenos Aires and grew up in part in the Netherlands and in part in Saudi Arabia and returned to Buenos Aires for his college work. His Ph.D. work focused ...
Coming soon, to The David Rockefeller Graduate Program
As the Rockefeller community says goodbye to the graduating class of 2012, a new group of talented students is set to join the campus in the fall. Approximately 700 applications of potential new students were received this year, and after much deliberation by the admissions committee, that list w...
Board approves nine-year strategic plan
Following nearly a year of development, the university’s strategic plan titled “Transforming Biomedicine” has been approved by the Board of Trustees. The plan, which will guide the university’s activities over a nine-year period ending in 2020, was authored by a 13-member strategic planning ...
New $600 million campaign launches
by LESLIE CHURCH With the introduction of an ambitious new strategic plan, The Rockefeller University is also embarking on a fundraising initiative, to be called the Campaign for Transforming Biomedicine. The campaign seeks to raise at least $600 million in nine years to facilitate the university...
Nobel winnings to fund Cohn-Steinman professorship
by ZACH VEILLEUX Ralph M. Steinman, head of the Laboratory of Cellular Physiology and Immunology, died just three days before winning the Nobel Prize last year. But his legacy at the university will live on: with a gift from the Steinman family and the support of over 120 donors including many of...
Recent computer attacks on campus target Macs, e-mail
by LESLIE CHURCH It’s not just biologists who are studying infection at Rockefeller. Computer security experts based in the IT Pavilion have been kept busy in recent months managing outbreaks of viruses and other malware on campus computers.     In June more than a dozen people on campus fe...
Employees honored for longtime service to university
Members of the Rockefeller faculty and staff were recognized for their service to the university with two recent events. The Employee Recognition Cocktail Reception in February honored employees who had worked at the university for 20 and 25 years. Fifty-nine employees celebrated 20 years of serv...
Genome Center to operate at Rockefeller in interim
by LESLIE CHURCH The New York Genome Center (NYGC), the nonprofit institution set to become one of the largest bioinformatics and genomics facilities in North America, is launching its pilot lab operations at The Rockefeller University while a search is conducted for a permanent facility. Rockef...
Thomas P. Maniatis elected to Board
by LESLIE CHURCH The university Board of Trustees elected Thomas P. Maniatis as its newest member at its spring meeting on March 14, bringing the total number of trustees to 43. Dr. Maniatis is the Isidore S. Edelman Professor and Chairman of the department of biochemistry and molecular biophysi...
Milestones
Awarded: Jesse H. Ausubel, the 2012 National Ocean Champion Award, presented by the Urban Coast Institute of Monmouth University in New Jersey, for his contributions to marine science and management. Mr. Ausubel joins a distinguished group of awardees, including Jean-Michel Cousteau, who won in 2...
Rockefeller’s 54th convocation awards Ph.D.s to 40 graduating students
The Rockefeller University will award doctoral degrees to 40 students at its convocation ceremony today. Additionally, two esteemed researchers will receive honorary doctor of science degrees: James E. Darnell Jr., Vincent Astor Professor Emeritus and head of the Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biol...
Rockefeller hosts first Leon Levy Neuroscience Fellows Symposium
The first Leon Levy Neuroscience Fellows Symposium will be held at Rockefeller University on Wednesday, May 16. Levy Fellows from Rockefeller, Columbia and New York universities, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Weill Cornell Medical College will discuss their latest neuroscience resear...
Rockefeller creates Cohn-Steinman Professorship to honor discoverers of dendritic cells
The Rockefeller University is creating the Cohn-Steinman Professorship to honor two of its most accomplished scientists, Nobel Prize winner Ralph Steinman and his mentor Zanvil A. Cohn, both of whom made seminal scientific discoveries that transformed the field of immunology. Steinman passed away...
Announcements
Bring your child to work. In celebration of national “Take Your Child to Work Day,” Human Resources is hosting activities from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Thursday, April 26. Children between the ages of 8 and 12 who are accompanied by an adult are welcome. The registration deadline is Friday, April 13...
New strategic plan to emphasize recruitment, hospital, infrastructure
After a series of weekly meetings held throughout the fall and winter, the university’s strategic planning committee, chaired by President Marc Tessier-Lavigne, has identified several themes that will likely become central elements of the plan’s first draft. The final plan is to be presented to ...
$15 million gift from Helmsley Trust to fund research on digestive diseases
by ZACH VEILLEUX A new $15 million gift — among the largest donation to the university since the closure of the Campaign for Collaborative Science last June — will help fund research into digestive disorders, including metabolic diseases, cancers and infections. The gift is the university’...
CFC playgrounds to be renovated
by ZACH VEILLEUX Three outdoor playgrounds used by the Child and Family Center’s 122 children are slated to be updated and slightly expanded over the coming months. The infant and toddler playground located on the west side of Sophie Fricke Hall, used by children up to three years old, was i...
Norton Zinder, pioneering molecular geneticist, dies at 83
Norton D. Zinder, a geneticist and microbiologist whose research on the genetics of bacteria and on the properties of bacteriophages — viruses that infect bacteria — provided seminal information on the mechanisms of heredity, died February 3 after a long illness. He was 83. Dr. Zinder was...
Board elects Dinakar Singh, Susan Lyne
by JOSEPH BONNER The university’s Board elected two new trustees at its fall meeting on November 16: Dinakar Singh and Susan Lyne. The board now numbers 42.       Mr. Singh is the founding partner of TPG-Axon Capital, a global investment firm. Through offices in New York, London, Hong Kong...
Dennis Ryan
Dennis Ryan, 63, a security guard who worked mostly day and evening shifts, died January 29. Born and raised in Hell’s Kitchen, Mr. Ryan had a career in the NYPD, from which he retired as a detective in 1986. He had been with Rockefeller since 2006. “He had an outgoing personality and loved to s...
Milestones
Awarded: Elaine Fuchs, the 2012 March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology. The prize, which Dr. Fuchs shares with Howard Green of Harvard Medical School, was established in 1996 as a tribute to the pioneering virologist Jonas Salk, and recognizes leaders in the field of developmental biology ...
Norton Zinder, pioneering molecular geneticist, dies at 83
Norton D. Zinder, a geneticist and microbiologist whose research on the genetics of bacteria and on the properties of bacteriophages — viruses that infect bacteria — provided important information on the mechanisms of heredity, died Friday, February 3 after a long illness. He was 83. Zinder w...
Announcements
Holiday party is December 8. After a two-year hiatus, the universitywide holiday celebration is back. All are invited to Weiss Café from 3:30 to 5 p.m. for food and beverages. Happy anniversary. At an afternoon reception on October 27, the university celebrated employment anniversaries for 147...
Nobel laureate Ralph Steinman dies at 68
Ralph Steinman, an immunologist who spent his entire career at Rockefeller and died just days before the Nobel Prize committee announced his name, passed away on September 30 after a four-and-a-half year battle with pancreatic cancer. Dr. Steinman, who discovered dendritic cells with Rockefeller ...
Small 2011 surplus to help plug future deficits
University’s $325 million operating budget closes with $1 million to spare by ZACH VEILLEUX Strong fundraising, access to federal stimulus funds and better-than-expected royalty income led the university to close the 2011 fiscal year with a $1.1 million surplus, but the approved 2012 budget is in...
University helps found New York Genome Center
The Rockefeller University, with 10 of the country’s leading medical and research institutions, has joined the New York Genome Center (NYGC), which will become one of the largest genomic facilities in North America. The consortium establishes an unprecedented, large-scale collaborative venture in...
Flexner and Welch Halls now fully gutted
Although the removal of concealed asbestos caused some delays last spring, the reconstruction of Flexner and Welch Halls is still on schedule, with work on both projects expected to be complete by the end of fall 2012. In Flexner, framing and utility work (top) is now underway on several floors...
New planters enhance pedestrian safety
Hundreds of pedestrians enter campus via the 66th Street gate each day. So do more than 200 cars, several dozen delivery vehicles and a steady stream of bicycles. It’s a lot of traffic for a ten-foot wide driveway and two narrow sidewalks. In response to complaints about conflicts between the...
Rockefeller walkers travel over 100,000 miles
This summer, 189 university employees participated in the Global Corporate Challenge (GCC), a worldwide walking program in which participants are issued pedometers and record their daily step totals on a dedicated Web portal. Over 16 weeks, the participants walked a total of 269,705,477 steps. Th...
Where glass gets clean
Milestones
Awarded: Leslie B. Vosshall, the 2011 Gill Young Investigator Award from the Linda and Jack Gill Center for Biomolecular Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. The award recognizes exceptional scientists who have emerged as international leaders in cellular, membrane or molecular neuroscienc...
University joins 10 leading medical and research institutions to form New York Genome Center
The Rockefeller University, along with 10 of the country’s leading medical and research institutions, has formed a new genomic facility designed to accelerate progress toward a new era of genome-based research and medicine. The New York Genome Center, which will become one of the largest genomic ...
Neurobiologist visits Rockefeller as part of renewed scientific exchange program with Karolinska Institute
Thomas Perlmann, a neurobiologist at the Karolinska Institute who studies the dopamine-producing cells that die during the development of Parkinson's disease, will visit the Rockefeller University campus this week and give the Nicholson Lecture on Friday. The lecture is part of a recently renewed...
Discussing Strategy
This fall will mark the launch of the formal process to develop the university’s next strategic plan, a document that will serve as the blueprint for our activities over the next seven to 10 years. Strategic planning is an essential function for an institution such as Rockefeller, and it will be ...
Alumna Vanessa Ruta named to university's faculty
by ZACH VEILLEUX Vanessa Ruta, a Rockefeller alumna who did her doctoral studies in Roderick Mac-Kinnon’s lab, graduating in 2005, has joined the university as assistant professor and will establish the Laboratory of Neurophysiology and Behavior. She moved from a postdoc at Columbia University on...
University owned building on 60th Street sells for $24 million
by ZACH VEILLEUX A four-story warehouse purchased by the university in 2003, which at one point was slated to be converted to faculty and postdoc housing, has been sold to a Long Island-based real estate developer. The sale was approved by the university’s Board in the spring and closed May 18. ...
Turnstile installed at 64th Street
by ZACH VEILLEUX A new full-height turnstile at Rockefeller’s 64th Street pedestrian entrance, installed August 3, has allowed the university to restore 24/7 access to the south campus from York Avenue. As a result, the existing entrance gate, which had been locked on nights and weekends since la...
New hospital initiatives aim to engage minorities in science
by JOSEPH BONNER Women and minorities continue to be underrepresented in the science and technology workforce, and new initiatives at Rockefeller University are working to change that. Led by Bernice B. Rumala, community engagement specialist in the Center for Clinical and Translational Science (...
Pearl Meister Greengard Prize to be awarded to McGill memory researcher
In the early 1950s, Brenda Milner was making a name for herself among researchers in the memory field, studying memory defects in epileptic patients who had undergone surgery on the brain’s frontal lobe. By 1955, Dr. Milner’s work attracted the attention of a Connecticut neurosurgeon, William Sc...
Stanley Fowler
A security guard since November 2009, Stanley Fowler mostly worked the evening and overnight shifts. He died in August at the age of 58. Originally from England, Mr. Fowler moved to the U.S. in 2002 and had worked as a guard at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, where he lived, before joining Rockefell...
Milestones
Awarded: Cori Bargmann, the 11th Perl-University of North Carolina Neuroscience Prize. The award, which Dr. Bargmann shares with Catherine Dulac of Harvard, is worth $10,000 and is awarded this year for the discovery of chemosensory circuits that regulate social behaviors. Dr. Bargmann, Torsten N...
Rockefeller University receives $36.1 million to help translate science into cures
Rockefeller University’s Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS), a center aimed at accelerating the pace of translating science into real-life solutions for patients, has received $36.1 million from the National Institutes of Health to expand its work over the next five years. Th...
Announcements
Convocation 2011. Convocation 2011. This annual Convocation issue of BenchMarks salutes the 2011 graduates of the David Rockefeller Graduate Program. To view more photos visit rockefeller.edu/convocation.  
Convocation 2011
                                This year’s Convocation celebration honored 23 graduates, bringing the total number of Rockefeller alumni to 1,070. Events included an evening reception for the graduates and their families, a luncheon, the traditional cap-and-gown ...
Honorary degree recipients unraveled secrets of scent
Linda B. Buck, a member of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, and Richard Axel, University Professor at Columbia University, who have together unraveled the mechanisms that underlie our sense of smell, are this year’s recipients of honorary doctor of science degrees. Drs. ...
Joseph Luna named David Rockefeller Fellow
by ZACH VEILLEUX Joseph Luna, a native of El Paso, Texas and a graduate of Yale University who is exploring host-virus interactions at the RNA level, has been awarded this year’s David Rockefeller Fellowship. The David Rockefeller Fellowship has been presented annually since 1998 to an outstandin...
Teaching awards honor Hang and Kapoor
Howard C. Hang, head of the Laboratory of Chemical Biology, and Tarun Kapoor, head of the Laboratory of Chemical Biology and Microbial Pathogenesis, were the recipients of this year’s Rockefeller University Distinguished Teaching Awards. Established in 2005 to recognize outstanding individual...
Coming soon, to The David Rockefeller Graduate Program
As the class of 2011 prepares to move on, a new batch of graduate students is set to take their place. Rockefeller’s application screening committee pored over 797 applications of potential new students this year, eventually winnowing the list down to 93 acceptances. Of those, 30 have enrolled in...
Rockefeller alum Vanessa Ruta named to university’s faculty
Vanessa Ruta, a Rockefeller alumna who did her doctoral studies in Rod MacKinnon’s lab, graduating in 2005, has been appointed the university’s newest assistant professor. Currently a postdoc at Columbia University, she will move back to Rockefeller on September 1 and will establish the Labo...
23 students receive Ph.D.s at Rockefeller's 53rd commencement
The Rockefeller University will award doctoral degrees to 23 students at its commencement ceremony today. In addition, two respected scholars will receive honorary doctor of science degrees: Richard Axel of Columbia University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Linda B. Buck of the Fred...
Announcements
Convocation is June 16. Twenty-three students will receive Ph.D.s at this year’s Convocation. In addition, honorary degrees will be awarded to Richard Axel of Columbia University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Linda Buck of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the Howard H...
Town hall meeting kicks off strategic planning process
At Marc Tessier-Lavigne’s first town hall meeting, the new president discussed his thoughts on the university’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as its place in science and in history. Dr. Tessier-Lavigne outlined his initial priorities, particularly concerning faculty recruitment, and sketched...
After cuts, university to close FY2011 budget with a small surplus
Cost reductions first announced last spring have successfully stabilized the university’s finances, according to a recent analysis of the operating budget. The university expects to close out the 2011 fiscal year, which ends June 30, with a modest surplus. “Although making cuts to the 2011 fi...
Milestones
Awarded: Titia de Lange, the 2011 Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science. The $100,000 prize recognizes her body of research on mechanisms that help maintain genome stability, in particular on telomeres, the elements that protect chromosome ends from unnecessary repair and mediate their replication. ...
Marc Tessier-Lavigne becomes Rockefeller’s tenth president
Marc Tessier-Lavigne, a leading neuroscientist and the former chief scientific officer of Genentech, takes over as president of The Rockefeller University today. He replaces Paul Nurse, who has left to become president of the Royal Society in London. Tessier-Lavigne was elected tenth president of...
Guiding neurons, and guiding scientists
Marc Tessier-Lavigne’s career has straddled academia and industry, and blurred traditional boundaries between basic and translational science by ZACH VEILLEUX Marc Tessier-Lavigne’s journey into neuroscience began a few hundred miles off the coast of Newfoundland, aboard the Queen Elizabeth II...
To understand the brain, Tessier-Lavigne studies its wiring
It takes several hundred billion nerve cells to put together the human brain, and they must be connected in an intricate and precise pattern in order to function properly. The formation of these connections — the brain’s neural circuits — during an organism’s embryonic development is what ul...
Making Rockefeller my new home
I am honored and delighted to be joining the university on March 16. The past six months have been a busy and exciting period of preparation — for my family and my lab as well as for me personally — as we planned our move to New York. Over these months I have had the opportunity to meet many of ...
Welcoming the Tessier-Lavignes
As chairman of the Board of Trustees it is my great honor and pleasure to welcome Marc Tessier-Lavigne as our 10th president. Through my role as chairman of the search committee that hired Marc, and through my frequent interactions with him since then, I can assure you that he is the right choice...
View
View