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Science News

A compound that stops cells from making protein factories could lead to new antifungal drugs

Tiny, abundant biological factories, known as ribosomes, produce the cell’s most fundamental building material: protein. If ribosomes don’t work, cells can’t divide—and this can be an advantage for scientists seeking to develop drugs that target invading organisms, such as pathogenic fungi. ...
Awards and Honors

Four Rockefeller scientists named 2016 HHMI Faculty Scholars

Four Rockefeller University scientists—Daniel Kronauer, Luciano Marraffini, Agata Smogorzewska, and Sohail Tavazoie—have been named Howard Hughes Medical Institute Faculty Scholars. The Faculty Scholars program, a new collaboration between HHMI, the Simons Foundation, and the Bill & Melinda Gate...
Awards and Honors

Rockefeller neuroscientist Cori Bargmann to lead science work at Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

Cori Bargmann, an internationally recognized neuroscientist who heads the Lulu and Anthony Wang Laboratory of Neural Circuits and Behavior at The Rockefeller University, has been named the incoming president of science at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), the philanthropy funded by Facebook f...
Campus News

Neuroscientist Cori Bargmann to lead science work at Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

Cori Bargmann, an internationally recognized neuroscientist who heads the Lulu and Anthony Wang Laboratory of Neural Circuits and Behavior at Rockefeller, has been named the incoming president of science at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), the philanthropy funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuc...
Science News

Scientists uncover a clever ranking strategy bacteria use to fight off viruses

Like humans, bacteria come under attack from viruses and rely on an immune system to defend themselves. A bacterial immune system known as CRISPR helps microbes “remember” the viruses they encounter and more easily fend them off in the future. Since researchers first discovered CRISPR in the mid...
Campus News

Awards, Arrivals, and Promotions

Congratulations to our latest award winners: Richard P. Lifton has won the 2016 Academy Medal for Distinguished Contributions in Biomedical Science. The award, given by The New York Academy of Medicine, recognizes Dr. Lifton for his seminal work on hypertension that has led to more effective prev...
Awards and Honors

Charles M. Rice wins Lasker Award for groundbreaking work on the hepatitis C virus

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 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, the country’s most prestigious science prize. Rice shares the award with Ralf F....
Science News

Researchers find combined effects of two genes responsible for premature skull fusion in infants

During the first year of life, the human brain doubles in size, and continues expanding through adolescence. The loosely connected bony plates of the young skull accommodate this growth. But sometimes, these bones fuse too early, a disorder known as craniosynostosis. This disorder can produce fac...
Campus News

Richard P. Lifton assumes office as the university’s 11th president

Physician-scientist Richard P. Lifton takes office on September 1 as Rockefeller University’s 11th president. Lifton, who has pioneered the use of genomics to identify the basis for diseases, succeeds Marc Tessier-Lavigne, who is leaving to assume the presidency of Stanford University. Lifton arr...
Science News

Four postdocs honored with 2016 Tri-Institutional Breakout Awards

NEW YORK, NY—Four young life scientists from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, The Rockefeller University, and Weill Cornell Medicine are the winners of the 2016 Tri-Institutional Breakout Awards for Junior Investigators. The awards, established last year by three winners of the 2013 Breakt...
Science News

Zika infection may affect adult brain cells, suggesting risk may not be limited to pregnant women

Concerns over the Zika virus have focused on pregnant women due to mounting evidence that it causes brain abnormalities in developing fetuses. However, new research in mice from scientists at The Rockefeller University and La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology suggests that certain adult ...
Campus News

Awards, Arrivals, and Promotions

Congratulations to our latest award winners: Veronica Jove is one of 34 graduate students who have received this year’s Gilliam Fellowship for Advanced Study, a program aimed at increasing diversity in the scientific workplace. The fellowship, given by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, support...
Science News

Structural images shed new light on a cancer-linked potassium channel

    Most cells in the body carry on their surface tiny pores through which potassium ions travel. In controlling the flow of these positively charged ions, the channel helps the cell maintain its electrical balance. One particular type of potassium channel, called Eag1, has been found...
Campus News

Daniel Mucida, who studies the gut’s specialized immune system, receives promotion

As of September 1, Daniel Mucida, who heads the Laboratory of Mucosal Immunology and studies the immune system along the vast surface of the intestine, will become an associate professor. The Board of Trustees approved his promotion on July 29. Although hidden from view, the gut has more interact...
Campus News

Daniel Mucida, who studies the gut’s specialized immune system, receives promotion

by Wynne Parry, science writer As of September 1, Daniel Mucida, who heads the Laboratory of Mucosal Immunology and studies the immune system along the vast surface of the intestine, will become an associate professor. The Board of Trustees approved his promotion on July 29. Although hidd...
Campus News

The 2016 graduates: Congratulatory tributes

During the Convocation ceremony, Rockefeller faculty commended their students for their scientific contributions, untiring work, and unique skills. Here are the congratulatory tributes given to each of the 2016 graduates (including students in the Tri-Institutional M.D.-Ph.D. Program, denoted wit...
Campus News

Rockefeller’s 58th Convocation ceremony in pictures

At Rockefeller University’s first Convocation in 1959, there were five graduates. Fifty-seven years later, as of Convocation on June 9, 2016, there are now 1,209 recipients of the Rockefeller University doctor of philosophy degree. The day’s festivities began with a graduate luncheon in the G...
Science News

New antibody drug continues to show promise for treatment of HIV

Great strides have been made in recent years to develop treatment options for HIV, and the disease can now be controlled with anti-retroviral drugs. But a cure remains elusive and current medications have limitations: they must be taken daily, for life, and can cause long-term complications. Now,...
Science News

Resistance to antidepressants linked to metabolism

Often, clinical depression has company; it shows up in the brain alongside metabolic abnormalities, such as elevated blood sugar, in the body. While studying an experimental antidepressant in rats, Rockefeller University researchers and their colleagues at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden found so...
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...
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