Skip to main content

Rockefeller University

News & Highlights > News
Campus News

New faculty member develops light-based tools to study the brain

by Wynne Parry, Science Writer When the brain is at work, large numbers of neurons within it interact rapidly, passing messages, sometimes across large distances. The most recent addition to Rockefeller University’s faculty, Alipasha Vaziri, devises optical tools for capturing and manipulating ...
Campus News

New neuroscience institute established at Rockefeller with funding from the Kavli Foundation

by Eva Kiesler, Managing Editor Earlier this month, a group of Rockefeller representatives travelled to Washington, D.C, to take part in an announcement of the university’s newly established Kavli Neural Systems Institute (Kavli NSI). Funded by a $20 million endowment supported equally by The Ka...
Campus News

Under its new director, the grants office will explore fresh ways to ease scientists’ hunt for funding

by Eva Kiesler, Managing Editor Ask a handful of scientists what they wish they could spend less time doing, and chances are many will say applying for grants. Rockefeller’s Office of Sponsored Research and Program Development (SR-PD) strives to provide the highest level of assistance for those...
Campus News

Helmsley Trust renews $15 million grant for novel digestive disorders research

by Wynne Parry, Science Writer The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust has awarded a new three-year, $15-million grant to The Rockefeller University to help support the interdisciplinary Center for Basic and Translational Research on Disorders of the Digestive System. Established in 2...
Campus News

Awards, arrivals, and promotions

Congratulations to our latest award winners: Hani Goodarzi has been named a Blavatnik Regional Awards Winner in the life sciences. Given by the Blavatnik Family Foundation and the New York Academy of Science, the award honors outstanding postdocs in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Winners ...
Awards and Honors

Two Rockefeller postdocs recognized by Blavatnik Regional Awards

The Blavatnik Regional Awards is honoring two young scientists for their work at Rockefeller. On October 13, the Blavatnik Family Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences named Hani Goodarzi, a postdoc in Sohail Tavazoie’s laboratory, a 2015 Blavatnik Regional Award Winner in the life scie...

In the News - Bedford+Bowery - Caspary

Is it still ‘chamber’ music if it’s in a space-age geodesic dome? "Tucked into The Rockefeller University’s Upper East Side campus is the Caspary Auditorium, a 40-foot-high, 90-foot-round dome built in 1957. The dome serves as a meeting and lecture hall, but to get a look inside, you needn...
Science News

Newly described ion channel structure reveals how excited neurons settle down

Within the brain, some neurons fire off hundreds of signals per second, and after ramping up for such a barrage, they need to relax and reset. A particular type of ion channel helps bring them down, ensuring these cells don’t get overstimulated—a state that potentially can lead to severe epilept...
Science News

Finches offer researchers a new tool to study Huntington’s disease

Many neurological disorders can rob someone of the ability to speak clearly, causing them to stutter, mispronounce words, and struggle to put together coherent sentences. However, the molecular and neurological dysfunctions that cause these symptoms aren’t well understood. Recent work at The Rock...
Science News

Researchers probe the physical forces involved in creating the mitotic spindle

Many millions of times per day, football-shaped structures called mitotic spindles form within the body’s cells as they prepare to divide. The process is routine but mysterious, as the micro-mechanics involved are not yet well understood. In research published October 1 in Developmental Cell, sci...

Funding from Kavli Foundation to establish new institute at Rockefeller devoted to neuroscience

The Kavli Foundation and The Rockefeller University today announced the formation of the Kavli Neural Systems Institute (Kavli NSI) at Rockefeller, funded by a $20 million endowment supported equally by Kavli and Rockefeller. The Institute will become part of a network of seven Kavli Institutes c...
Science News

Study offers insight on how a new class of antidepressants works

A new class of drugs under development to treat depression has shown some success by targeting brain cells’ ability to respond to the chemical messenger glutamate. But the mechanism by which these experimental therapies work has remained unknown. The recent discovery, by a Rockefeller University-...
Awards and Honors

Helen Hobbs will receive the 2015 Pearl Meister Greengard Prize

MSNBC Host Rachel Maddow to Present Award Honoring Women in Science to Researcher Whose Work on LDL Cholesterol Led to New Therapeutics NEW YORK, NY—The Rockefeller University has announced that Helen H. Hobbs, MD, will receive the 2015 Pearl Meister Greengard Prize, an annual award recognizing...
Awards and Honors

Heilbrunn Center announces recipients of its Nurse Scholar Awards

Three nurses at New York state universities have been selected to receive the university’s Heilbrunn Nurse Scholar Awards, which The Rockefeller University awards annually to provide financial support for nurses while they pursue independent research projects. Each one- to two-year award provides...

In the News - Bargmann - NYTimes

Cori Bargmann Puts Her Mind to How the Brain Works   "Cornelia Bargmann, a neurobiologist at Rockefeller University in New York, studies how genes interact with neurons to create behavior. Two years ago, President Obama named Dr. Bargmann, who is known as Cori, a co-chairwoman of the advisory com...
Science News

New findings help explain how molecules are speedily transported into and out of the cell's nucleus

A cell does everything it can to protect its nucleus, where precious genetic information is stored. That includes controlling the movement of molecules in and out using gateways called nuclear pore complexes (NPCs). Now, researchers at The Rockefeller University, Albert Einstein College of Medici...
Campus News

Renovations to two RRB floors will create structural biology ‘cluster’

by ZACH VEILLEUX A lab modernization project underway on two floors in the Rockefeller Research Building, to be completed next spring, is reconfiguring 17,000 square feet of space to create new labs for four Rockefeller structural biologists who frequently collaborate. The result—a structural bi...
Campus News

Celebrating David Rockefeller’s 100th birthday

[slideshow_deploy id='3672'] by WYNNE PARRY This summer marked two milestones for Life Trustee David Rockefeller: His 100th birthday and his 75th year on the Board of Trustees. In celebration, the Board’s June 3 meeting included a tribute to Mr. Rockefeller in honor of his extraordinary leade...
Campus News

Obesity researcher and former hospital physician-in-chief Jules Hirsch dies

by WYNNE PARRY Jules Hirsch, an early leader in the study of human metabolism, died at age 88 in Englewood, New Jersey, after a long illness. His research, conducted at The Rockefeller University, helped establish the biological underpinnings of obesity, challenging the notion that the disease re...
Campus News

The Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute opens new round of funding

by EVA KIESLER For the past two years, the Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute (Tri-I TDI) — a partnership between The Rockefeller University, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Weill Cornell Medical College — has been working to speed the translation of basic science di...
Campus News

Heilbrunn Center announces recipients of its Nurse Scholar Awards

by WYNNE PARRY Three nurses at New York state universities have been selected to receive the university’s Heilbrunn Nurse Scholar Awards, which The Rockefeller University awards annually to provide financial support for nurses while they pursue independent research projects. Each one- to two-year...
Campus News

Awards, Arrivals, and Promotions

Congratulations to the following researchers, who have recently been honored with prestigious awards: Joel Cohen has received the Golden Goose Award in honor of his work developing the first global map of human population distribution by elevation. Award winners, selected by a panel of respected ...
Science News

For worms, positive thinking is the key to finding food

Caenorhabditis elegans, a tiny roundworm, spends much of its lifetime searching for soil bacteria to eat. This humble creature possesses 302 neurons, which may not seem like a lot compared to the billions of nerve cells that make up the human brain. Nonetheless, it uses sophisticated strategies t...
Awards and Honors

Joel Cohen and Torsten Wiesel receive Golden Goose Awards for research with unexpected benefits

Joel E. Cohen, Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor and head of the Laboratory of Populations, and Torsten Wiesel, President Emeritus and Vincent and Brooke Astor Professor Emeritus, have each received a Golden Goose Award. The award honors federally funded research that may seem obscure but has le...
Science News

New findings shed light on fundamental process of DNA repair

Inside the trillions of cells that make up the human body, things are rarely silent. Molecules are constantly being made, moved, and modified — and during these processes, mistakes are sometimes made. Strands of DNA, for instance, can break for any number of reasons, such as exposure to UV radiat...
Campus News

Newest addition to Rockefeller faculty studies how cellular metabolism contributes to disease

The most recent addition to Rockefeller’s tenure-track faculty, Kivanç Birsoy, studies the changes in cellular metabolism that occur in disease, including cancer. Currently a postdoc at MIT’s Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Birsoy will relocate to Rockefeller in January and establi...
Science News

Research identifies a protein that helps determine the fate of RNA

After it is transcribed from DNA, RNA can go on to many fates. While the most familiar path may lead directly to the production of protein, RNA molecules themselves can also become capable of altering the expression of genes. New research helps explain how the destiny of an RNA sequence is achiev...
Science News

Promising class of new cancer drugs causes memory loss in mice

Cancer researchers are constantly in search of more-effective and less-toxic approaches to stopping the disease, and have recently launched clinical trials testing a new class of drugs called BET inhibitors. These therapies act on a group of proteins that help regulate the expression of many gene...
Campus News

Announcements

New perks, health and wellness events unveiled. Rockefeller students and employees are now eligible for a discount on Verizon FiOS service, special banking deals from Apple Bank and on mortgage rates at Chase, and car rental deals with Enterprise CarShare. For more information on perks, visit ins...
Campus News

Rockefeller welcomes three new lab heads

by WYNNE PARRY In the next five months, three new laboratories will open on campus, their research centering on cellular metabolism, biological membranes, and molecular motors. Two of the new faculty recruits are tenure-track candidates who emerged as finalists in last year’s open search. The thi...
Campus News

With landmark gift from Kravis Foundation, construction on the river campus begins

by AMELIA KAHANEY The first visible sign of the university’s ambitious expansion project—the construction of a new “river campus” and a 135,600 square-foot laboratory building over the FDR Drive—arrived on June 15 in the form of a small excavator and a few dozen orange and white road barri...
Campus News

Smogorzewska and Tavazoie named associate professors

Agata Smogorzewska and Sohail Tavazoie, physician-scientists who joined Rockefeller in 2009, have both been promoted this year to the rank of associate professor. Dr. Smogorzewska, who studies DNA repair processes that occur during cellular replication, is head of the Laboratory of Genome Mainten...
Campus News

New garden dedicated to longtime employee Lila Magie

Before retiring to Maine in 1991, Lila Magie was an indomitable force at Rockefeller for 41 years, working with five university presidents and rising from stenographer to head of non-academic personnel, and then to director of faculty administration and corporate secretary to the Board of Trustee...
Campus News

New university Board members have backgrounds in biology and finance

by AMELIA KAHANEY The university’s Board of Trustees recently elected two new members: Robert K. Steel, chief executive officer of Perella Weinberg Partners, and Joan A. Steitz, Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute in...
Campus News

Rockefeller designated a “Milestones in Microbiology” site by the American Society for Microbiology

by AMELIA KAHANEY Infectious disease was once the most serious threat to human health. Research in microbiology changed this by revealing the responsible pathogens and producing therapies to counter their infection. For its critical contributions to this historic transition, this spring The Rocke...
Campus News

Artist Isabella Kirkland donates prints to Rockefeller

by AMELIA KAHANEY The earth has lost approximately 1,000 species to extinction in the past 500 years, and scientists predict that number will multiply rapidly during this century. At the same time, thousands of species new to science are discovered each year and several million may remain to be d...
Campus News

Second annual "Science Saturday" draws families for hands-on learning

In its second year, Science Saturday attendance grew by nearly a third, bringing more than 1,000 guests—over half of them children—to Rockefeller to experience a day of hands-on science activities. Jointly hosted by the Development Office’s Parents & Science initiative and the Science Outreach...
Campus News

Susan King named executive director of Press

by AMELIA KAHANEY When Susan King first began her career in scientific publishing, with a Ph.D. in immunology from the University of Glasgow and after a three-year postdoc at St George’s Hospital Medical School (now St George’s, University of London), she wasn’t sure what to expect of life out...
Campus News

Mathematicians Steven Strogatz and Ian Stewart win Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science

by WYNNE PARRY It takes a particular breadth of mind to succeed in bridging the world of advanced science and the world of letters. But perhaps even more unusual is the mathematician who can translate complex numerical investigations into poetry, comedy, suspense, and mystery for readers untraine...
Campus News

John C. Whitehead, emeritus trustee, dies at 92

by AMELIA KAHANEY John C. Whitehead, a member of the university’s Board of Trustees for nearly three decades, as well as a public servant and business leader, died in February at the age of 92. Closely identified with the partnership of Goldman Sachs, which he led for nearly a decade, Mr. Whitehe...
Campus News

70 employees honored for longtime service

Two ceremonies have been held this year to commemorate years of service to the university by Rockefeller employees. In June, employees who retired in 2014 and those celebrating special anniversaries of 30 or more years were feted at an anniversary and retirement dinner in the Great Hall of Welch....
Campus News

Milestones

Awarded: C. David Allis, the Jonathan Kraft Prize for Excellence in Cancer Research, presented by the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center. The newly established award celebrates achievements in cancer research and includes a monetary prize of $20,000, endowed by Robert Kraft, owner of th...
Campus News

Fred Bohen, longtime Rockefeller administrator, dies

by AMELIA KAHANEY Frederick M. Bohen, who was executive vice president and chief operating officer at Rockefeller for many of the years between 1990 and 2005, died March 14 at his home in Manhattan at the age of 77. During his tenure at Rockefeller, Mr. Bohen served with five university president...
Science News

A newly discovered molecular feedback process may protect the brain against Alzheimer’s

It is a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease: Toxic protein fragments known as amyloid-β clumped together between neurons in a person’s brain. Neurons themselves make amyloid-β, and for reasons that aren’t fully understood, its accumulation ultimately contributes to the memory loss, personality c...
Awards and Honors

Luciano Marraffini and Robert Roeder recognized by ASBMB awards

Two Rockefeller scientists, Luciano Marraffini and Robert Roeder, have received awards from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in recognition for their significant contributions to their fields. A nonprofit scientific and educational organization, the ASBMB announced its ...
Science News

In exploring a fly’s choice of a mate, researchers track the neural circuits that bridge sensory perception and behavioral action

If you’ve ever found a banana overtaken by a swarm of tiny flies, you were in fact witnessing an orgy of amorous Drosophila melanogaster. These trespassers engage in fervent courtship and mating atop ripe fruits, and the sex is anything but casual. In particular, male flies are very precise in ch...
Science News

New research helps explain why a deadly blood cancer often affects children with malaria

In equatorial Africa, a region of the globe known as the “lymphoma belt,” children are ten times more likely than in other parts of the world to develop Burkitt’s lymphoma, a highly aggressive blood cancer that can be fatal if left untreated. That area is also plagued by high rates of malaria,...
Campus News

Obesity researcher and former hospital physician-in-chief Jules Hirsch dies

Jules Hirsch, an early leader in the study of human metabolism, died at age 88 in Englewood, New Jersey, after a long illness. His research, conducted at The Rockefeller University, helped establish the biological underpinnings of obesity, challenging the notion that the disease results from a la...
Campus News

Agata Smogorzewska, who studies DNA repair, promoted to associate professor

Agata Smogorzewska, a physician-scientist and head of the Laboratory of Genome Maintenance, has been promoted to associate professor, effective July 1. Smogorzewska came to Rockefeller as a faculty member in 2009 to study DNA repair processes that occur during cellular replication. “The genome ...
Science News

New research sheds light on the molecular origins of Parkinson’s disease

As Parkinson’s disease progresses in patients, a puzzling dichotomy plays out in their brains. One set of neurons degenerates, while a similar population nearby is spared the same degree of damage. Why the difference? An answer to this question could clear the way for preventions and treatments f...

In the News - NY Post - Darnell

Ice Bucket Challenge money distributed to ALS researchers   "In New York, Dr. Robert Darnell is one of the beneficiaries. The New York Genome Center, where he is the president and scientific director, received $2.5 million in challenge money from the ALS Association. Half of that money came from ...
Science News

Mutations linked to genetic disorders shed light on a crucial DNA repair pathway

Dividing cells are prone to errors, and so they must be prepared to summon sophisticated emergency systems to deal with potential damage. One type of division-derailing mishap can occur when assault by certain chemicals causes two strands of DNA to permanently connect when they shouldn’t, in what...
Science News

Fly brains filter out visual information caused by their own movements, like humans

Our brains are constantly barraged with sensory information, but have an amazing ability to filter out just what they need to understand what’s going on around us. For instance, if you stand perfectly still in a room, and that room rotates around you, it’s terrifying. But stand still in a room a...
Science News

Atomic view of cellular pump reveals how bacteria send out proteins

Bacteria have plenty of things to send out into world beyond their own boundaries: coordinating signals to other members of their species, poisons for their enemies, and devious instructions to manipulate host cells they have infected. Before any of this can occur, however, they must first get th...

In the News - CEN - Greengard

Sustained by Science   "No artist stops working, and I think really dedicated scientists—unless their health doesn’t allow it—are the same way," Paul Greengard says. “We’re in a creative profession, so it never even occurred to me to stop."
Science News

Cell division speeds up as part of antibody selection, study shows

It’s a basic principle of immunology: When a germ invades, the body adapts to that particular target and destroys it. But much remains unknown about how the immune system refines its defensive proteins, called antibodies, to most effectively zero in on that invader. Experiments at The Rockefeller...

In the News - Business Insider - Bargmann

The 15 most amazing women in science today   "Through her studies on roundworms, Cori Bargmann is uncovering how neurons and genes affect behavior. Because many of the gene mechanisms in roundworms mimic those of mammals, Bargmann is able to manipulate certain genes and observe how that affects c...
Campus News

Convocation 2015

When The Rockefeller University held its first Convocation in 1959, there were only five graduates. Fifty-six years later, as of Convocation on June 11, 2015, there are now 1,178 recipients of the Rockefeller University doctor of philosophy degree. The festivities began with a graduate luncheon i...
Campus News

Honorary degrees awarded to three Pearl Meister Greengard laureates

by AMELIA KAHANEY In addition to 28 students, three trailblazing women in science received degrees from Rockefeller this year. In a tradition dating back more than 50 years, the university awarded honorary doctorate of science degrees to distinguished individuals who have made notable contributio...
Campus News

David Rockefeller Fellowship awarded to third-year Robert Heler, a bacteriologist

by AMELIA KAHANEY Robert Heler, a graduate fellow in Luciano Marraffini’s Laboratory of Bacteriology,has been awarded the 2015 David Rockefeller Fellowship, given each year to an outstanding third-year student for demonstrating exceptional promise in science and leadership. The fellowship was est...
View
Previous
Next
View
Previous
Next