News & HighlightsNews
Luciano Marraffini works to understand how bacteria acquire foreign DNA
by ZACH VEILLEUX Luciano Marraffini, a microbiologist, is interested in how bacterial pathogens modulate the transfer of foreign DNA into their genomes. He joined the university on July 1 as assistant professor and head of the Laboratory of Bacteriology. Fundamentally, Dr. Marraffini wants to un...
Daniel Kronauer uses molecular genetics to study social evolution in insects
by BRETT NORMAN Daniel Kronauer, who will join Rockefeller in July 2011 as head of the Laboratory of Insect Social Evolution, is interested in understanding how evolution operates at different levels of organization in the rich context of insect societies, from the gene to the individual and soci...
Milestones
Awarded: Jean-Laurent Casanova, a Grand Challenges Explorations grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The $100,000 grant is one of 78 announced by the foundation in May to support scientists exploring bold and largely unproven ways to improve health in developing countries. Dr. Casanova...
Gene identified that prevents stem cells from turning cancerous
Stem cells, the prodigious precursors of all the tissues in our body, can make almost anything, given the right circumstances. Including, unfortunately, cancer. Now research from Rockefeller University shows that having too many stem cells, or stem cells that live for too long, can increase the o...
Robert G. Roeder to receive Salk Institute Medal for Research Excellence
Robert G. Roeder, head of the Laboratory of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, will receive the Salk Institute’s Medal for Research Excellence for his contributions to the understanding of RNA synthesis in animal cells. This is only the second time in Salk’s 50-year history that medals have ...
Two Rockefeller scientists elected to Institute of Medicine
Rockefeller University scientists Robert B. Darnell, head of the Laboratory of Molecular Neuro-oncology, and Titia de Lange, head of the Laboratory of Cell Biology and Genetics, have been elected to the Institute of Medicine, the health and medicine branch of the National Academy of Sciences. Ann...
Paul Nurse named top of the list of 100 most important people in British science
Rockefeller University President Paul Nurse is the number one scientist in a list of the 100 most important people in British science. The list, first of its kind, will be published today in the first anniversary issue of Eureka, the monthly science magazine of London’s daily newspaper, The Ti...
Research on killer HIV antibodies provides promising new ideas for vaccine design
Rockefeller researchers have made two fundamental new discoveries about the immune defenses of a rare group of HIV patients whose bodies can naturally keep the virus at bay. By detailing the molecular workings of so-called broadly neutralizing anti-HIV antibodies, the researchers hope their work...
Patterned pulses boost the effects of deep brain stimulation, research shows
Electrical stimulation has been used as a sort of defibrillator of consciousness, rousing a victim of traumatic brain injury to at least partial awareness, after years in a coma. The procedure, termed deep brain stimulation, has also been used to treat Parkinson’s disease and has shown some pr...
Jeffrey M. Friedman receives Albert Lasker Award for discovery of leptin
This year’s Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, the most prestigious American prize in science, honors Rockefeller University’s Jeffrey M. Friedman, who discovered leptin, a hormone that regulates food intake and body weight. Friedman, who is the Marilyn M. Simpson Professor and hea...
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