Skip to main content

Rockefeller University

News & Highlights > News
Campus News

Implementing the Strategic Plan

As many of you know, a major activity during my first year at the university was the development of a strategic plan that will guide the university over the next several years. This plan, which reflects many months of intensive work by the strategic planning committee as well as essential input f...
Campus News

Rockefeller opens its doors to Open House NY

by LESLIE CHURCH For those without access, the Rockefeller campus can seem shrouded in mystery. But on a rainy weekend this October, the university opened its doors and let the city in as part of Open House New York weekend. The annual event showcases hundreds of the city’s most architecturally a...
Campus News

University honors Norton Zinder with symposium and annual lecture

by LESLIE CHURCH Norton D. Zinder, the pioneering geneticist and molecular biologist who helped lay the foundation for the new field of molecular biology in the 1950s and ’60s, was honored with a memorial symposium in November. An annual endowed lecture is also being established in his name. Dr. ...
Campus News

Rockefeller’s Pearl Meister Greengard Prize awarded to RNA researcher Joan Steitz

Joan A. Steitz, a pioneer in the field of RNA biology whose discoveries involved patients with a variety of autoimmune diseases, was awarded the 2012 Pearl Meister Greengard Prize from The Rockefeller University last month. The prize honors female scientists who have made extraordinary contributi...
Campus News

Venture capitalist David Sze named to Board

by ZACH VEILLEUX The university’s newest Board member, elected at the June 6 meeting, is David Sze, a partner in the Menlo Park, California offices of venture capital firm Greylock Partners. Mr. Sze, who was introduced to Rockefeller by President Marc Tessier-Lavigne, will serve on the Committee ...
Campus News

New science outreach director aims to show students it’s cool to be nerdy

by LESLIE CHURCH The first goal of the Science Outreach Program’s new director is to squash the stereotype that all scientists have Albert Einstein hair and socially awkward personalities. She won’t have to look hard for evidence: she herself is living proof. Jeanne Garbarino, who was named dir...
Campus News

Robert Darnell named president of New York Genome Center

By Zach Veilleux Sometime during the last decade, as he developed technology to explore the role of RNA in neurological disease, Robert B. Darnell realized that the talented, highly educated molecular biologists in his lab were spending more and more of their time doing something that they had ne...
Campus News

Structural biology center provides machines for large scale projects

by LESLIE CHURCH With momentum gaining at the New York Genome Center and several new institutional partnerships beginning on Roosevelt Island and downtown Brooklyn, the academic landscape of New York City is poised for a new era of collaboration. But the idea behind these alliances — that more ca...
Campus News

Milestones

Awarded: Elaine Fuchs, the 2012 Academy Medal for Distinguished Contributions in Biomedical Science from the New York Academy of Medicine, for her innovative and imaginative approaches to research in skin biology, its stem cells and its associated human genetic disorders. The medal is given to em...
Campus News

New neuroscience textbook will be a free reference for students in developing countries

An innovative new five-volume digital neuroscience textbook, edited by Rockefeller University professor Donald W. Pfaff, has been published and is being made available at no cost to qualified students in developing countries. As digital textbooks improved in quality, Pfaff, head of the Laboratory...

Nature online: December 12, 2012

Nature online: December 12, 2012 Rapid regulation of depression-related behaviours by control of midbrain dopamine neurons Dipesh Chaudhury, Jessica J. Walsh, Allyson K. Friedman, Barbara Juarez, Stacy M. Ku, Ja Wook Koo, Deveroux Ferguson, Hsing-Chen Tsai, Lisa  Pomeranz, Daniel J. Christoffel, ...

Nature Methods online: December 9, 2012

Nature Methods online: December 9, 2012 Fast multicolor 3D imaging using aberration-corrected multifocus microscopy Sara Abrahamsson, Jiji Chen, Bassam Hajj, Sjoerd Stallinga, Alexander Y. Katsov, Jan Wisniewski, Gaku Mizuguchi, Pierre Soule, Florian Mueller, Claire Dugast Darzacq, Xavier Darzacq...

Science 338: 1352-1353 (12-7-12)

Science 338: 1352-1353 Developmental progression to infectivity in Trypanosoma brucei triggered by an RNA-binding protein Nikolay G. Kolev, Kiantra Ramey-Butler, George A. M. Cross, Elisabetta Ullu and Christian Tschudi

Neuron 76: 989-997 (12-6-12)

Neuron 76: 989-997 The spatial pattern of cochlear amplification Jonathan A.N. Fisher, Fumiaki Nin, Tobias Reichenbach, Revathy C.  Uthaiah and A.J. Hudspeth
Awards and Honors

Charles M. Rice awarded Dautrebande Prize

Charles M. Rice, Maurice R. and Corinne P. Greenberg Professor in Virology and head of the Laboratory of Virology and Infectious Disease, has been given the Prize of Pathophysiology Professor Lucien Dautrebande from the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine for his description of the molecular and ce...
Campus News

Robert Darnell named president of New York Genome Center

Robert B. Darnell, Robert and Harriet Heilbrunn Professor and head of the Laboratory of Molecular Neuro-oncology, has been named president and scientific director of the New York Genome Center. He will direct all aspects of the NYGC, including its scientific and research activities, and the recru...

Cell 151: 1126-1137 (11-21-12)

Cell 151: 1126-1137 Molecular profiling of activated neurons by phosphorylated ribosome capture Zachary A. Knight, Keith Tan, Kivanc Birsoy, Sarah Schmidt, Jennifer L. Garrison, Robert W. Wysocki, Ana Emiliano, Mats I.  Ekstrand and Jeffrey M. Friedman

Cell 151: 1005-1016 (11-21-12)

Cell 151: 1005-1016 Promoter-specific transcription inhibition in Staphylococcus aureus by a phage protein Joseph Osmundson, Cristina Montero-Diez, Lars F. Westblade, Ann Hochschild and Seth A. Darst

Neuron 76: 735-749 (11-21-12)

Neuron 76: 735-749 14-3-3 proteins regulate a cell-intrinsic switch from sonic hedgehog-mediated commissural axon attraction to repulsion after midline crossing Patricia T. Yam, Christopher B. Kent, Steves Morin, W. Todd Farmer, Ricardo Alchini, Léa Lepelletier, David R. Colman, Marc Tessier-Lavi...

Cell 151: 1068-1082 (11-21-12)

Cell 151: 1068-1082 Convergent multi-miRNA targeting of ApoE drives LRP1/LRP8-dependent melanoma metastasis and angiogenesis Nora Pencheva, Hien Tran, Colin Buss, Doowon Huh, Marija Drobnjak, Klaus  Busam and Sohail F. Tavazoie

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 109: E3268-3277 (11-20-12)

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 109: E3268-3277 Complex-type N-glycan recognition by potent broadly neutralizing HIV antibodies Hugo Mouquet, Louise Scharf, Zelda Euler, Yan Liu, Caroline Eden, Johannes F.  Scheid, Ariel Halper-Stromberg, Priyanthi N. P. Gnanapragasam, Daniel ...

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 109: 19274-19279 (11-20-12)

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 109: 19274-19279 Functional and structural analysis of the human SLO3 pH- and voltage-gated K+ channel Manuel D. Leonetti, Peng Yuan, Yichun Hsiung and Roderick MacKinnon
Science News

Brain displays an intrinsic mechanism for fighting infection

White blood cells have long reigned as the heroes of the immune system. When an infection strikes, the cells, produced in bone marrow, race through the blood to fight off the pathogen. But new research is emerging that individual organs can also play a role in immune system defense, essentially b...

Molecular Cell online: November 8, 2012

Molecular Cell online: November 8, 2012 Transcriptome-wide miR-155 binding map reveals widespread noncanonical microRNA targeting Gabriel B. Loeb, Aly A. Khan, David Canner, Joseph B. Hiatt, Jay Shendure, Robert B. Darnell, Christina S. Leslie and Alexander Y. Rudensky
Science News

Potent antibodies neutralize HIV and could offer new therapy, study finds

Having HIV/AIDS is no longer a death sentence, but it’s still a lifelong illness that requires an expensive daily cocktail of drugs — and it means tolerating those drugs’ side effects and running the risk of resistance. Researchers at The Rockefeller University may have found something better:...

Nature Immunology online: October 28, 2012

Nature Immunology online: October 28, 2012 Immunodeficiency, autoinflammation and amylopectinosis in humans with inherited HOIL-1 and LUBAC deficiency Bertrand Boisson, Emmanuel Laplantine, Carolina Prando, Silvia Giliani, Elisabeth  Israelsson, Zhaohui Xu, Avinash Abhyankar, Laura Israël, Girald...

Nature online: October 28, 2012

Nature online: October 28, 2012 Impaired intrinsic immunity to HSV-1 in human iPSC-derived TLR3-deficient CNS cells Fabien G. Lafaille, Itai M. Pessach, Shen-Ying Zhang, Michael J. Ciancanelli, Melina Herman, Avinash Abhyankar, Shui-Wang Ying, Sotirios Keros, Peter A.  Goldstein, Gustavo Mostosla...

Science online: October 26, 2012

Science online: October 26, 2012 Oxytocin/ vasopressin-related peptides have an ancient role in reproductive behavior Jennifer L. Garrison, Evan Z. Macosko, Samantha Bernstein, Navin Pokala, Dirk  R. Albrecht and Cornelia I. Bargmann
Campus News

Nicholson Lecture brings vascular biologist to speak at Rockefeller as part of exchange program with Karolinska Institute

Christer Betsholtz will visit the Rockefeller University campus on Friday as part of a recently renewed program that supports research exchanges between the university and the Karolinska Institute. Betsholtz studies vascular biology, with a focus on cellular and molecular mechanisms for angiogene...
Science News

Neurotransmitters linked to mating behavior are shared by mammals and worms

When it comes to sex, animals of all shapes and sizes tend behave in predictable ways. There may be a chemical reason for that. New research from Rockefeller University has shown that chemicals in the brain — neuropeptides known as vasopressin and oxytocin — play a role in coordinating mating an...

Nature online: October 24, 2012

Nature online: October 24, 2012 HIV therapy by a combination of broadly neutralizing antibodies in humanized mice Florian Klein, Ariel Halper-Stromberg, Joshua A. Horwitz, Henning Gruell, Johannes F. Scheid, Stylianos Bournazos, Hugo Mouquet, Linda A. Spatz, Ron  Diskin, Alexander Abadir, Trinity...

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 109: 17657-17662 (10-23-12)

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 109: 17657-17662 Acute stress and hippocampal histone H3 lysine 9 trimethylation, a retrotransposon silencing response Richard G. Hunter, Gen Murakami, Scott Dewell, Ma’ayan Seligsohn, Miriam  E.R. Baker, Nicole A. Datson, Bruce S. McEwen and Do...

Nature Genetics 44: 1255-1259 (10-21-12)

Nature Genetics 44: 1255-1259 De novo gain-of-function KCNT1 channel mutations cause malignant migrating partial seizures of infancy Giulia Barcia, Matthew R Fleming, Aline Deligniere, Valeswara-Rao Gazula, Maile  R Brown, Maeva Langouet, Haijun Chen, Jack Kronengold, Avinash Abhyankar, Roberta C...

Cell Host and Microbe 12: 585-597 (10-18-12)

Cell Host and Microbe 12: 585-597 Inhibition of HIV-1 particle assembly by 2',3'-cyclic-nucleotide 3'-phosphodiesterase Sam J. Wilson, John W. Schoggins, Trinity Zang, Sebla B. Kutluay, Nolwenn Jouvenet, Mudathir A. Alim, Julia Bitzegeio, Charles M. Rice and Paul D. Bieniasz

Neuron 76: 338-352 (10-18-12)

Neuron 76: 338-352 Slit/Robo signaling modulates the proliferation of central nervous system progenitors Víctor Borrell, Adrián Cárdenas, Gabriele Ciceri, Joan Galcerán, Nuria Flames, Ramón Pla, Sandrina Nóbrega-Pereira, Cristina  García-Frigola, Sandra Peregrín, Zhen Zhao, Le Ma, Marc Tess...

Nature online: October 17, 2012

Nature online: October 17, 2012 DAXX envelops an H3.3-H4 dimer for H3.3-specific recognition Simon J. Elsässer, Hongda Huang, Peter W. Lewis, Jason W. Chin, C. David Allis and Dinshaw J. Patel

The EMBO Journal 31: 4045-4056 (10-17-12)

The EMBO Journal 31: 4045-4056 The hSSB1 orthologue Obfc2b is essential for skeletogenesis but dispensable for the DNA damage response in vivo Niklas Feldhahn, Elisabetta Ferretti, Davide F Robbiani, Elsa Callen, Stephanie Deroubaix, Licia Selleri, Andre Nussenzweig and Michel C Nussenzweig
Awards and Honors

Elaine Fuchs awarded distinguished medal from New York Academy of Medicine

Elaine Fuchs, Rebecca C. Lancefield Professor and head of the Laboratory of Mammalian Cell Biology and Development at Rockefeller University, will be awarded the 2012 Academy Medal for Distinguished Contributions in Biomedical Science from the New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM), for her innovati...

In the News

Good Viruses Will Fight Acne as 1915 Discovery Is Revived   "The research re-energizes a century-old treatment method that was abandoned with the rise of antibiotics during World War II. As germs have built up a resistance to those drugs in recent years, scientists are seeking alternatives and th...

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA online: October 15, 2012

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA online: October 15, 2012 Effects of long DNA folding and small RNA stem-loop in thermophoresis Yusuke T. Maeda, Tsvi Tlusty and Albert Libchaber

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 109:16498-16503 (10-9-12)

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 109:16498-16503 Structural evolution of the membrane-coating module of the nuclear pore complex Xiaoping Liu, Jana M. Mitchell, Richard W. Wozniak, Günter Blobel and Jie Fan
Campus News

Flexner move-ins begin as construction winds down

by ZACH VEILLEUX After five years of work, construction on the Collaborative Research Center is drawing to a close, and crews are now in the final stages of finishing work to outfit laboratories and install equipment in Flexner Hall.   “Labs on several floors are actually complete an...
Campus News

Shai Shaham and Sean Brady receive promotions

by LESLIE CHURCH and ZACH VEILLEUX Two Rockefeller faculty members have received promotions, both of which were approved by the Board at its June 7 meeting. Shai Shaham, head of the Laboratory of Developmental Genetics, has been awarded tenure and promoted to professor; Sean Brady, head of the La...
Campus News

New faces on campus

The newest graduate students are here and ready to don their lab coats. There are 27 students — 18 are a part of the Rockefeller Ph.D. program, one student is in the Tri-Institutional Chemical Biology program and eight are M.D.-Ph.D. students. First row: Mariel Bartley, Joan Pulupa, Dylan Kwart...
Campus News

Following in dad's footsteps

by LESLIE CHURCH Frank Pansini has done stone setting work all over New York City, but restoring the marble path in front of Caspary has a special meaning for him — it’s the same path his father put in place 50 years ago. Mr. Pansini, owner of U.S. Stone Setting, Inc., was hired by Turner Const...
Campus News

The Rockefeller University Press’s ‘Google Earth’-like tool for cell biology

by LESLIE CHURCH In science, seeing the big picture is key. The Rockefeller University Press has taken that literally. Using an online image publishing tool they originally developed in 2008, The Journal of Cell Biology (JCB) has released what it believes is the largest image ever published onlin...
Campus News

FY2012 budget closes with modest deficit

by ZACH VEILLEUX The university’s fiscal year 2012 operating budget ended with a $6.8 million deficit, largely the result of reduced endowment spending over the past three years. But the shortfall was expected and has been covered with reserve money from prior year budget surpluses. “The fis...
Campus News

Gloria Chang DiGennaro

by LESLIE CHURCH Gloria Chang DiGennaro, an assistant director of human resources who worked at the university for 16 years, died August 25 after a long battle with cancer. She was 68 years old. “She was a very special person and a dear friend to us,” says Virginia Huffman, vice president fo...
Campus News

Milestones

Awarded: C. David Allis, a grant from the Caring for Carcinoid Foundation, for research on tumor suppressor activities of ATRX and Daxx mutations through epigenomic profiling and animal models. Dr. Allis, the Joy and Jack Fishman Professor and head of the Laboratory of Chromatin Biology and Epige...

Nature online: October 3, 2012

Nature online: October 3, 2012 Adenoma-linked barrier defects and microbial products drive IL-23/IL-17-mediated tumour growth Sergei I. Grivennikov, Kepeng Wang, Daniel Mucida, C. Andrew Stewart, Bernd  Schnabl, Dominik Jauch, Koji Taniguchi, Guann-Yi Yu, Christoph H. Österreicher, Kenneth E. Hun...

Molecular Psychiatry online: October 2, 2012

Molecular Psychiatry online: October 2, 2012 Bidirectional regulation of emotional memory by 5-HT(1B) receptors involves hippocampal p11 T.M. Eriksson, A. Alvarsson, T.L. Stan, X. Zhang, K.N. Hascup, E.R. Hascup, J. Kehr, G.A. Gerhardt, J. Warner-Schmidt, M. Arango-Lievano, M.G. Kaplitt, S.O. Ögr...
Awards and Honors

Rockefeller fellow receives NIH ‘early independence award’ to study immune responses with high throughput sequencing

Brad Rosenberg, who completed his M.D.-Ph.D. through the Tri-Institutional program in May, is one of 14 early-career investigators across the country to receive an NIH Director’s Early Independence Award, which will allow him to establish his own research program at Rockefeller. He has been named...
Awards and Honors

Shai Shaham and Sean Brady receive promotions

Two Rockefeller faculty members have received promotions, both of which were approved by the Board at its June 7 meeting. Shai Shaham, head of the Laboratory of Developmental Genetics at The Rockefeller University, has been awarded tenure and promoted to professor; Sean Brady, head of the Laborat...

The Journal of Experimental Medicine 209: 1813-1823 (9-24-12)

The Journal of Experimental Medicine 209: 1813-1823 Macrophages induce differentiation of plasma cells through CXCL10/IP-10 Wei Xu, HyeMee Joo, Sandra Clayton, Melissa Dullaers, Marie-Cecile Herve, Derek  Blankenship, Maria Teresa De La Morena, Robert Balderas, Capucine Picard, Jean-Laurent Casan...

Nature Immunology online: September 23, 2012

Nature Immunology online: September 23, 2012 The proto-oncogene MYC is required for selection in the germinal center and cyclic reentry David Dominguez-Sola, Gabriel D Victora, Carol Y Ying, Ryan T Phan, Masumichi  Saito, Michel C Nussenzweig and Riccardo Dalla-Favera
Awards and Honors

Jeffrey M. Friedman awarded 11th IPSEN Endocrine Regulation Prize

The Fondation IPSEN has awarded its 11th Endocrine Regulation Prize to Jeffrey M. Friedman, the Marilyn M. Simpson Professor and head of the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics, for his discovery of the hormone leptin and its role in regulating body weight. The French foundation, whose mission is to...

Neuron 75: 1067-1080 (9-20-12)

Neuron 75: 1067-1080 Neuronal Elav-like (Hu) proteins regulate RNA splicing and abundance to control glutamate levels and neuronal excitability Gulayse Ince-Dunn, Hirotaka J. Okano, Kirk B. Jensen, Woong-Yang  Park, Ru Zhong, Jernej Ule, Aldo Mele, John J. Fak, ChingWen Yang, Chaolin Zhang, Jong ...

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA online: September 17, 2012

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA online: September 17, 2012 DEC-205 is a cell surface receptor for CpG oligonucleotides Mireille H. Lahoud, Fatma Ahmet, Jian-Guo Zhang, Simone Meuter, Antonia N. Policheni, Susie Kitsoulis, Chin-Nien Lee, Meredith O’Keeffe, Lucy C.  Sullivan, An...

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA online: September 17, 2012

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA online: September 17, 2012 DEC-205 is a cell surface receptor for CpG oligonucleotides Mireille H. Lahoud, Fatma Ahmet, Jian-Guo Zhang, Simone Meuter, Antonia N. Policheni, Susie Kitsoulis, Chin-Nien Lee, Meredith O’Keeffe, Lucy C.  Sullivan, An...
Awards and Honors

Five Rockefeller scientists receive high risk-high reward NIH grants

An unprecedented number of Rockefeller University faculty have been awarded prestigious five-year grants under the High Risk High Reward program supported by the National Institutes of Health Common Fund. Robert B. Darnell and Thomas Tuschl are each receiving a 2012 NIH Director’s Transformative ...
View
Previous
Next
View
Previous
Next