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Rockefeller University

News & Highlights > News
Science News

Study suggests humans can detect even the smallest units of light

Just how dark does it have to be before our eyes stop working? Research by a team from Rockefeller University and the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Austria has shown that humans can detect the presence of a single photon, the smallest measurable unit of light. Previous studies had ...
Campus News

Awards, arrivals, and promotions

Congratulations to our latest award winners: Cori Bargmann has been awarded an honorary doctor of science degree from the University of Oxford. Dr. Bargmann was one of nine distinguished figures who was celebrated at Encaenia, the university’s annual honorary degree ceremony, on June 22. Dr. Barg...
Campus News

Rockefeller’s newest faculty member studies birdsong to illuminate the origins of human language

The ability to speak has allowed our species to pass knowledge between generations, articulate complex ideas, and build societies. Erich Jarvis, the newest addition to Rockefeller’s faculty, uses songbirds as a model to study the molecular mechanisms that underlie how individuals learn spoken lan...
Science News

New approach exposes 3D structure of Alzheimer’s proteins within the brain

Alzheimer’s disease clouds memory, dims the mind, and distorts behavior. Its ravages also show up within the physical structure of the brain, perhaps most prominently as sticky clumps of a naturally occurring but harmful protein called amyloid-β. A team at The Rockefeller University used a new...
Awards and Honors

Postdoc John Maciejowski wins 2016 Regeneron Prize for Creative Innovation

John Maciejowski, a postdoctoral fellow in Titia de Lange’s Laboratory of Cell Biology and Genetics, has received the 2016 Regeneron Prize for Creative Innovation. The award, given by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., recognizes innovative young scientists based on proposals they submit that have ...
Campus News

Rockefeller’s newest faculty member studies birdsong to illuminate the origins of human language

by Katherine Fenz, media relations manager The ability to speak has allowed our species to pass knowledge between generations, articulate complex ideas, and build societies. Erich Jarvis, the newest addition to Rockefeller’s faculty, uses songbirds as a model to study the molecular mechan...
Campus News

Mary E. Hatten and Daniel Kronauer honored with teaching awards

by Alexandra MacWade, assistant editor Mary E. Hatten, Frederick P. Rose Professor and head of the Laboratory of Developmental Neurobiology, and Daniel Kronauer, assistant professor and head of the Laboratory of Social Evolution and Behavior, were honored at this year’s Convocation luncheon w...
Campus News

2016 David Rockefeller Fellowship awarded to third-year graduate student Lillian Cohn

by Alexandra MacWade, assistant editor Lillian Cohn, a graduate fellow in Michel Nussenzweig’s Laboratory of Molecular Immunology, has been awarded the 2016 David Rockefeller Fellowship, given annually to an outstanding third-year student for demonstrating exceptional promise as a scientist...
Campus News

Four leaders in biomedicine awarded honorary degrees

by Alexandra MacWade, assistant editor In addition to 31 students, four esteemed scientists received degrees at this year’s Convocation ceremony. Continuing a tradition dating back more than five decades, the university awarded honorary doctorate of science degrees to distinguished individual...
Campus News

Neurobiologist interested in memory to join Rockefeller faculty

For humans, the ability to form and recall memories is what gives meaning to existence. Memory is what allows us to learn, to form relationships, and to feel emotions. Priya Rajasethupathy, the most recent addition to Rockefeller’s faculty, studies the mechanisms that make memories possible, work...
Campus News

Neurobiologist interested in memory to join Rockefeller faculty

by Wynne Parry, science writer Currently a postdoc at Stanford, Dr. Rajasethupathy will join the university as a tenure-track assistant professor and head of laboratory in May. She is the third new scientist to emerge from Rockefeller’s fall 2015 open recruitment process, making this year...
Science News

An unexpected origin for calming immune cells in the gut

Biologically speaking, we carry the outside world within us. The food we ingest each day and the trillions of microbes that inhabit our guts pose a constant risk of infection—and all that separates us from these foreign entities is a delicate boundary made of a single layer of cells. The immune...

In the News - Los Angeles Times - Nussenzweig

New therapy keeps HIV at bay without daily drug regimen, study says   "Using antibodies against HIV could be part of a 'kick and kill' strategy, said study co-author Dr. Michel Nussenzweig — to kick the virus out of its hiding places and kill it."
Awards and Honors

Michel C. Nussenzweig honored with the 2016 Robert Koch Award

Michel C. Nussenzweig, Zanvil A. Cohn and Ralph M. Steinman Professor and head of the Laboratory of Molecular Immunology, has won the 2016 Robert Koch Award. Nussenzweig will share the €100,000 prize, given by the Robert Koch Foundation of Germany, with Alberto Mantovani from Humanitas University...
Campus News

New faculty member investigates how cells respond to mechanical forces

Whether maneuvering about under their own power, or being pushed and pulled by the surrounding tissue, cells both give and receive mechanical force. The newest addition to Rockefeller University’s faculty, Gregory Alushin, is a biophysicist who investigates how cells use their structural filament...
Campus News

New faculty member investigates how cells respond to mechanical forces

by Wynne Parry, science writer Whether maneuvering about under their own power, or being pushed and pulled by the surrounding tissue, cells both give and receive mechanical force. The newest addition to Rockefeller University’s faculty, Gregory Alushin, is a biophysicist who investigates ...
Campus News

Miriam O. Adelson, a physician and expert in drug addiction research, is elected to the Board

by Alexandra MacWade, assistant editor The university’s Board of Trustees elected new member Miriam O. Adelson, a doctor of internal medicine and an expert in drug addiction research, at their June 1 meeting. With her election, the university has 48 voting trustees. Dr. Adelson is the chairma...
Campus News

Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute expands focus to include antibody drug discovery research

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, The Rockefeller University and Weill Cornell Medicine today announced that they will expand the focus of the successful Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute, Inc., a partnership established in 2013 to expedite early-stage drug discovery of inn...
Campus News

Awards, arrivals, and promotions

Congratulations to our latest award winners: Research associate Richard Hite and postdoctoral fellow John Maciejowski are two of this year’s four winners of the 2016 Tri-Institutional Breakout Awards for Junior Investigators. The prize, established last year by three Tri-Institutional winners of ...

In the News - New York Times - River Campus

Rockefeller University Starts Its Expansion Over a Busy Highway   "Crammed hard against the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive from 62nd Street to 68th Street on the Upper East Side, the university had limited space for new construction and no real estate was available on any edge of its property. So th...
Campus News

Installation of River Campus structure begins with delivery of first of 19 prefabricated modules

A new phase of the project to extend the Rockefeller University’s campus toward the East River begins tomorrow at midnight, when the first of 19 prefabricated sections of the extension’s structural skeleton will be lifted into place over the FDR Drive
Campus News

Science Saturday draws hundreds of young explorers and their families

Never is Rockefeller University as aglow with excitement and curiosity as during Science Saturday, an annual festival now in its third year. Last month, the event drew close to 1,000 students and their families to campus, where scientists engaged them in hands-on experiments and interactive demon...
Campus News

Rockefeller’s annual science festival draws hundreds of young explorers and their families

Never is Rockefeller University as aglow with excitement and curiosity as during Science Saturday, an annual festival now in its third year. Last month, the event drew close to 1,000 students and their families to campus, where scientists engaged them in hands-on experiments and interactive demon...
Campus News

31 students receive Ph.D.s at Rockefeller’s 58th convocation

The Rockefeller University awarded doctoral degrees to 31 students at its convocation ceremony today. Each doctoral candidate was presented for the degree by his or her mentor, a tradition dating back to the university’s first commencement ceremony in 1959. In addition, four esteemed immunology r...
Campus News

New online system to quickly report and address non-emergency issues

by Wynne Parry, science writer Broken locks or stuck doors, loud music, shattered glass—these aren’t emergencies, but they need to be addressed. Now, with the new NotifyRU system, community members can simultaneously relay these concerns to security and the appropriate department. Modeled o...
Awards and Honors

Heilbrunn Center announces recipients of its 2016 Nurse Scholar Awards

Five nurses from around the country have been selected to receive Heilbrunn Nurse Scholar Awards, given by The Rockefeller University’s Heilbrunn Family Center for Research Nursing to support nurses while they pursue independent research projects that will make a significant contribution to the d...
Campus News

New faculty member investigates how genes are born and proliferate

It’s a central question in evolution: How does something new emerge? Li Zhao, an evolutionary biologist and the most recent addition to Rockefeller’s faculty, approaches this problem by investigating the birth of new genes. Appointed a tenure-track assistant professor and head of laboratory, Zha...
Science News

New mouse models give a boost to the development of cancer immunotherapies

Cancer immunotherapies—drugs that work by making a patient’s immune system better at spotting and destroying tumor cells—are increasingly generating headlines. A number of these drugs are now being used for the treatment of melanoma, lung, and kidney cancers, and are showing promise in clinica...
Campus News

New faculty member investigates how genes are born and proliferate

by Wynne Parry, science writer It’s a central question in evolution: How does something new emerge? Li Zhao, an evolutionary biologist and the most recent addition to Rockefeller’s faculty, approaches this problem by investigating the birth of new genes. Appointed a tenure-track assistant pr...
Science News

Do artificial sweeteners live up to the promise of sweetness without harm? An ongoing clinical study investigates

There was a time when Thomas Huber, a molecular biologist at The Rockefeller University, was drinking about 36 ounces of diet cola a day. More than a year ago, Huber, a research assistant professor in Thomas P. Sakmar’s Laboratory of Chemical Biology and Signal Transduction, became curious about ...
Science News

Researchers uncover how “silent” genetic changes drive cancer

At any given moment, the human genome spells out thousands of genetic words telling our cells which proteins to make. Each word is read by a molecule known as a tRNA. “We’ve long thought of these molecules as little more than middle men participating in the process of translating proteins...
Science News

New insights into muscular dystrophy point to potential treatment avenues

The average healthy man is 54 percent muscle by mass, but people with muscular dystrophy, an incurable, genetic condition, have almost no muscle at terminal stages of the disease. New research from The Rockefeller University provides insights about what causes patients’ muscles to degenerate and ...
Science News

Researchers find new signs of stress damage in the brain, plus hope for prevention

Chronic stress can make us worn-out, anxious, depressed—in fact, it can change the architecture of the brain. New research at The Rockefeller University shows that when mice experience prolonged stress, structural changes occur within a little-studied region of their amygdala, a part of the brain...

In the News - The Atlantic - Leslie Vosshall

Using CRISPR to Learn How a Body Builds Itself   "They call the technique 'genome editing of synthetic target arrays for lineage tracing' or GESTALT for short. 'It’s a great starting point for understanding how a single cell gives rise to a complex animal, and a technique that dramatically impro...
Science News

New technique captures the activity of an entire brain in a snapshot

When it comes to measuring brain activity, scientists have tools that can take a precise look at a small slice of the brain (less than one cubic millimeter), or a blurred look at a larger area. Now, researchers at The Rockefeller University have described a new technique that combines the best of...
Campus News

Rick Lifton, geneticist who linked salt and hypertension, to be Rockefeller’s 11th president

by Zach Veilleux, director of publications & editor-in-chief Rick Lifton has been at the cutting edge of genomics since his college days and has led Yale’s department of genetics for the last 18 years. He’s also the scientist whose work makes us feel guilty about sprinkling salt on our ...
Science News

New method gives scientists a better look at how HIV infects and takes over its host cells

Viruses attack cells and commandeer their machinery in a complex and carefully orchestrated invasion. Scientists have long probed this process for insights into biology and disease, but essential details still remain out of reach. A new approach, developed by a team of researchers led by The Rock...
Campus News

Rockefeller tops global ranking of scientific impact

by Katherine Fenz, media relations manager A new ranking of universities that measures their influence based on the impact of research publications has placed The Rockefeller University at the very top of its list. The results of the 2016 CWTS Leiden Ranking, announced May 18, reveal that Rockefe...
Campus News

35 labs and counting: How the Robertson Therapeutic Development Fund speeds translational research at Rockefeller

by Alexandra MacWade, assistant editor Developing a new medical product is a complex, high-risk endeavor. Of the thousands of clinically promising concepts scientists formulate each year, only a small fraction move beyond the lab. The Robertson TDF was created to advance work that has gone beyon...
Awards and Honors

Rockefeller tops global ranking of scientific impact

A new ranking of universities that measures their influence based on the impact of research publications has placed The Rockefeller University at the very top of its list. The results of the 2016 CWTS Leiden Ranking, announced May 18, reveal that Rockefeller has the highest percentage of frequent...
Campus News

The new river campus is about to arrive—section by section

by Wynne Parry, science writer It’s no ordinary construction project. The Stavros Niarchos Foundation–David Rockefeller River Campus will extend the university’s grounds some 90 feet toward the East River, creating two new acres of land out of thin air. The steel skeleton that will mak...
Campus News

Awards, arrivals, and promotions

Congratulations to our latest award winners: David Allis has won the 2016 Gruber Genetics Prize. The prize is given by The Gruber Foundation of Yale University and honors scientists whose work inspires fundamental shifts in knowledge and culture. Allis shares the award with Michael Grunstein of U...
Campus News

Rockefeller scientists in the news

by Katherine Fenz, media relations manager Breakthrough human embryo research A revolutionary method to study early human embryo development developed in Ali Brivanlou’s laboratory received widespread media coverage this month. The study was the first to successfully culture human embryos for...
Science News

Scientists find evidence that cancer can arise from changes in the proteins that package DNA

A mutation that affects the proteins that package DNA—without changing the DNA itself—can cause a rare form of cancer, according to new findings in this week’s Science from researchers at Rockefeller University. The mutation is present in histones, the protein scaffolding around which DNA w...
Awards and Honors

C. David Allis receives the 2016 Gruber Genetics Prize

C. David Allis, Joy and Jack Fishman Professor and head of the Laboratory of Chromatin Biology and Epigenetics, has won the 2016 Gruber Genetics Prize. He shares the $500,000 award with Michael Grunstein of the University of California, Los Angeles. The award, given by The Gruber Foundation, reco...
Awards and Honors

Torsten Wiesel wins Karolinska Institute’s Jubilee Gold Medal

Torsten Wiesel, President Emeritus and Vincent and Brooke Astor Professor Emeritus, will receive the Karolinska Institute’s Jubilee Gold Medal in recognition of his outstanding contributions to Sweden’s scientific community and to the medical university itself. Wiesel shares the award with Rune ...
Campus News

The Global Corporate Challenge at Rockefeller: 100 days around the world

by Alexandra MacWade, assistant editor This spring, several hundred Rockefeller faculty and staff members will embark on a competitive, virtual walking tour of the world. The group, which will be divided into teams and motivated to find the longest walking routes across campus and around the cit...
Science News

Antibody therapy opens door to potential new treatment for HIV

The development of antiretroviral therapy, a combination of drugs that slows the replication of HIV in the body, has transformed the treatment of this infection. What was once a certain death sentence is now a chronic condition that people can live with for decades. But this therapy has drawbacks...
Campus News

Richard P. Lifton named 11th president of The Rockefeller University

The Rockefeller University today announced that its Board of Trustees has elected Richard P. Lifton to be the 11th president of the university, effective September 1, 2016. Lifton, 62, Sterling Professor of Genetics and chair of the department of genetics at Yale University, will succeed Marc Tes...
Science News

Researchers use new CRISPR-based strategy to replicate disease in cells

To explore in detail how specific genetic errors can lead to disease, scientists need to perform experiments in cells that carry these exact mutations. Now, the ability to create these cellular replicas using new genome editing technology has been facilitated thanks to work by Rockefeller Univers...
Science News

A central clock runs the cell division cycle

Each time a cell divides, it replicates its DNA once, then separates the two copies from each other and splits into two daughter cells. The event is intricately coordinated and was long known to be under the influence of cyclins—an aptly named group of proteins whose levels go up and down as the ...
Science News

New method allows first look at key stage of human development, embryo implantation

Accompanying commentary recommends revisiting current bioethical guidelines in light of advance       Despite significant biomedical advances in recent decades, the very earliest events of human development­—those that occur during a critical window just after fertilization—h...

In the News - Wall Street Journal - Brivanlou

Scientists Grow Embryos for Up to 13 Days Outside the Uterus   "In addition, to both teams’ surprise, the embryos outside the womb were able to 'self-organize' or begin to set in motion early development of key body organs without any biological cues from the mother. 'That is counterintuitive to ...
Awards and Honors

Nathaniel Heintz and Stanislas Leibler elected to the National Academy of Sciences

Nathaniel Heintz, James and Marilyn Simons Professor and head of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, and Stanislas Leibler, Gladys T. Perkin Professor and head of the Laboratory of Living Matter, have been elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. They are among 84 new national and 21 ne...
Awards and Honors

Charles Rice wins Belgium’s highest scientific 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 honored with the 2016 InBev-Baillet Latour Health Prize for his work on the hepatitis C virus. Queen Mathilde of Belgium presented Rice with the prize...
Science News

An experimental Alzheimer’s drug reverses genetic changes thought to spur the disease

Aging takes its toll on the brain, and the cells of the hippocampus—a brain region with circuitry crucial to learning and memory—are particularly vulnerable to changes that can lead to Alzheimer’s disease or cognitive decline. With the hope of counteracting the changes that can lead to these t...

In the News - Stat - Tessier-Lavigne

Scientists solve CRISPR's 'Energizer Bunny' problem   "'It works beautifully,' Tessier-Lavigne said. With standard CRISPR-Cas9, 6 percent to 35 percent of the edits were clean, without random insertions and deletions due to Cas9’s repeated cuts, but with their upgrade, the percentage of clean e...

In the News - The New Yorker - Allis

Same but Different: How epigenetics can blur the line between nature and nurture "Allis walked me to his lab, a fluorescent-lit space overlooking the East River, divided by wide, polished-stone benches. A mechanical stirrer, whirring in a corner, clinked on the edge of a glass beaker. 'Two featur...
Campus News

Work begins to redesign Rockefeller’s website

by Alexandra MacWade, assistant editor and Zach Veilleux, director of publications & editor-in-chief The last time Rockefeller’s website was rebuilt, mobile phones had hinges and Netflix sent movies only on disks. Broadband was still a novelty and Myspace was on the rise. That was in 2004, an...
Campus News

Awards, arrivals, and promotions

Congratulations to our latest award winners: Paul Cohen has won a Young Investigator Award together with two of his collaborators. The prize is given by the International Human Frontier Science Program Organization to recognize projects under the theme of “complex mechanisms in living organisms...
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