News & Events

Cells constantly interact with each other and with the surrounding extracellular matrix through physical forces such as tension, pressure, torque, and shear stress. Over the past 50 years, biologists have increasingly come to recognize the important role biomechanics plays in the function of cellular activities such as gene expression and signaling. 
Here, The Scientist reports on recently developed methods—from upgraded versions of conventional tools to newer micro- and nanotechnologies—in the proliferating tool chest of cellular mechanobiology research. Read more

Nine doctoral candidates and one postdoctoral associate at Cornell were recently inducted into the Cornell chapter of the Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society. The 2017 Bouchet fellows are: Ezen Choo (pharmacology), Steve Halaby (biochemistry, molecular & cell biology), Frank He (biomedical engineering), Aaron Joiner (biochemistry, molecular & cell biology), Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo (science & technology studies), Paul Muniz (sociology), Ornella D. Nelson (chemistry and chemical biology), Suzanne Pierre (ecology and evolutionary biology), Gabriel J. Reyes-Rodriguez (postdoctoral scholar), Carrie Young (communication), and Christine Akoh (nutrition). Read more

A single gene is bringing researchers closer to understanding two devastating neurodegenerative diseases. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) are both neurodegenerative diseases that ravage the body and brain. ALS attacks nerve cells, which in turn weaken muscles until they waste away, and FTLD damages the brain’s temporal and frontal lobes, leading to a loss in brain function and, ultimately, personality and behavior deterioration. While the causes of ALS and FTLD are still a mystery, both diseases share a common linkage in the gene C9orf72.
Peter Sullivan, a fifth-year doctoral student in the field of biochemistry, molecular, and cell biology, is working to better understand C9orf72 and how it functions to unravel the mystery of ALS and FTLD. Read more

What is the process that allows plant and animal organs to produce different specialized cells from an original set of identical cells? In the case of small and giant cells found in the sepals – the leaf-like covering of petals in a bud – of flowering Arabidopsis plants, the answer is randomness. Read more

Tobias Döerr, assistant professor, microbiology
Academic focus: bacterial growth mechanisms
Academic background: M.Sc., biology, University of Hannover, 2006; Ph.D., biology, Northeastern University, 2011
Previous positions: postdoctoral research fellow, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 2011-16
Last book read: “Bach: Music in the Castles of Heaven” by J.E. Gardiner
In his own time: playing the guitar, spider taxonomy, comparative linguistics and learning new languages Read more

Sudeep Banjade, now a postdoctoral associate at Cornell University, won the ASCB Kaluza Prizes for Excellence in Graduate Research for his graduate work in Michael Rosen’s lab at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center where he studied the molecular mechanisms behind phase-separation of multivalent signaling proteins. He discovered that assembly of the adhesion receptor Nephrin and its cytoplasmic partners Nck and N-WASP leads to phase-separation in solution and on model membranes, which can activate this signaling system in a switch-like fashion. Read more

A volunteer program is connecting graduate students in the sciences and other fields with K-12 classrooms to teach mini-courses in Tompkins, Cayuga and Seneca county schools. The Graduate Student School Outreach Program (GRASSHOPR), which began in the mid-1990s and is supported by Cornell’s Public Service Center, is seeking student applicants to the program by this year’s Oct. 7 deadline. Read more

An essential molecule in cells, called phosphatidic acid (PA), is at the center of a cellular biology mystery.

This lipid, or fatty molecule, is a jack-of-all-trades – based on context, it can cause cells to move, divide or commit suicide. Elevated levels of PA have also been observed in many types of cancer as well as autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases. Read more

In chemist Jeremy Baskin’s lab, new and innovative ways to illuminate and visualize the beginnings of lipid signaling pathways are being developed. Read more

Graduate students and postdoctoral scholars [including Aaron Joiner, Fromme Lab] gathered in Stocking Hall recently to learn about a topic that’s strikingly absent at most universities: how to become a professor. Read more

Uncovering the details of a 100 million-year-old symbiosis between bacteria and whiteflies opens the door for controlling an insect pest that is rated one of the top 10 invasive species on the planet. Read more

Maggie Gustafson is a fifth-year doctoral student in the field of biochemistry, molecular and cell biology and this year’s winner of the Harry and Samuel Mann Outstanding Graduate Student Award. Her research in Chris Fromme’s lab is unlocking the secrets of a protein decision-making process that few knew existed until it was discovered at Cornell four years ago. Read more

Fromme has been selected as a Visiting Fellow of Clare Hall at the University of Cambridge, UK, where he will do sabbatical research at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology.  Read more

Because they have narrow bodies and no collarbones, mice are able to squeeze through holes as small as a quarter-inch in diameter. Cancer cells similarly are able to migrate through extremely tight quarters but with a major difference: The journey often comes at a price – the deformation and, in some cases, rupture of the outer lining of a cell’s nucleus. 
A research group headed by Jan Lammerding, associate professor of biomedical engineering, has been studying this phenomenon in hope of using it to develop both treatment and diagnostic solutions for the millions of people who deal with cancer every day. Read more

Research on a modified protein around which DNA is wrapped sheds light on how gene regulation is linked to aging and longevity in nematodes, fruit flies and possibly humans. The research has implications for how gene expression is regulated, and could offer a new drug target for age-related diseases. Read more

There is a growing awareness among biologists that the mechanical context of a cell determines some of its function. As a result of this awareness, many biologists are now looking outside of traditional biology and starting to focus on the mechanics and physics of cells. To do this, they are forging fruitful research relationships with engineers.  Nowhere is this boundary-breaking collaboration more apparent than at Cornell’s Department of Biomedical Engineering. This trend in the field of biological research has made Cornell’s Jan Lammerding a very happy man. Read more

Each cell needs to constantly remodel the landscape of its surface because the thin membrane that surrounds all cells is fragile and must be renewed to protect the cell from lysis and death. And that’s where the trouble begins.
To remove aged and damaged cell-surface proteins, the membrane-sculpting macromolecular machine creates vesicles. These vesicles function as “molecular trash bags,” which carry old and misfolded membrane proteins from the surface into internal recycling plants, where the waste is degraded and components are reused.
That’s why Shaogeng Tang – a fourth-year doctoral student in the field of biochemistry, molecular and cell biology and recent recipient of the Harry and Samuel Mann Outstanding Graduate Student Award – is studying the ways these machines assemble and function to learn how to switch them on and off. Read more

From Yuxin Mao's lab: Phosphoinositide (PI) lipids regulate a wide variety of cellular processes, from cell signaling to cytoskeletal dynamics, by controlling the identity and properties of cellular membranes. A large number of PI kinases and phosphatases restrict the distribution of PI species and give each cellular compartment its own, distinct PI signature. When vesicles are transported from one compartment to another, therefore, their PI composition must be modified accordingly. Two papers by Hsu et al. and Nakatsu et al. reveal that the phosphatase Sac2 promotes endocytic trafficking by dephosphorylating PI(4)P (1, 2). Read more

On Nov. 10, Dean Kathryn Boor, Cornell Cooperative Extension Director and Associate Dean Chris Watkins, and more than 100 guests celebrated the College of Agriculture and Life Science’s best and brightest at the 11th annual Research, Extension and Staff Awards. Boor praised all the recipients, and thanked them for epitomizing Cornell’s land grant-mission of delivering knowledge with a public purpose.
Among those honored was Haiyuan Yu, one of two recipients of the Early Achievement award.  Read more

Held in NYC for the first time, and hosted by Scott Emr (WICMB) and Frederick Maxfield, (WCMC), Weill Institute and Weill Cornell Medical College recently concluded the annual 3-day Symposium & Poster Presentations. Read more

Integrating techniques from both engineering and biology, Prof. Jan Lammerding, cell and molecular biology, biomedical engineering, is investigating how mutations in cell nuclear proteins cause conditions ranging from inherited heart disease to premature aging. Read more

Cornell researchers have uncovered the basic cell biology that helps explain heart defects found in diseases known as laminopathies, a group of some 15 genetic disorders that include forms of muscular dystrophy and between 5 percent and 10 percent of all cases of inherited heart disease. Read more