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March 12, 2024

A cross-college collaboration, led by Paula Cohen and Marcus Smolka, is opening new doors in the study of male infertility by breaking down a key step in sperm formation Isolating the intricacies of meiotic sex chromosome inactivation, will now enable researchers to identify what happens when that key step...

November 28, 2023

Crosstalk between auxin and cytokinin contributes to widespread developmental processes, including root and shoot meristem maintenance, phyllotaxy, and vascular patterning However, our understanding of crosstalk between these hormones is limited primarily to angiosperms The moss Physcomitrium patens (formerly Physcomitrella patens) is a powerful system for studying plant hormone function Auxin and cytokinin play similar roles in regulating moss gametophore (shoot) architecture, to those in flowering plant shoots However, auxin–cytokinin crosstalk is poorly understood in moss Here we find that the ratio of auxin to cytokinin is an important determinant of development in P patens, especially during leaf development and branch stem cell initiation Addition of high levels of auxin to P patens gametophores blocks leaf outgrowth However, simultaneous addition of high levels of both auxin and cytokinin partially restores leaf outgrowth, suggesting that the ratio of these hormones is...

November 7, 2023

Postdoctoral researchers Julie Heffler and Avilash Singh Yadav have been awarded the 2023 Sam and Nancy Fleming Research Fellowships by the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology at Cornell University These prestigious three-year fellowships support talented young researchers who are doing cutting-edge research in basic biomedical sciences and are planning careers in biological or medical research “The Fleming Fellowships provide exceptional young scientists the support and freedom to pursue ambitious projects,” said Marcus Smolka, interim director of the Weill Institute and professor of molecular biology and genetics in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences “The 2023 recipients are brilliant researchers Their highly innovative proposals, one on mammalian hearts and the other on organ shape and size control in plants, beautifully illustrate the interdisciplinary nature of the Weill Institute” The Fleming Fellowship will enable Heffler to explore a mechanism that...

November 1, 2023

Arf GTPases are central regulators of the Golgi complex, which serves as the nexus of membrane-trafficking pathways in eukaryotic cells Arf proteins recruit dozens of effectors to modify membranes, sort cargos, and create and tether transport vesicles, and are therefore essential for orchestrating Golgi trafficking The regulation of Arf activity is controlled by the action of Arf-GEFs which activate via nucleotide exchange, and Arf-GAPs which inactivate via nucleotide hydrolysis The localization dynamics of Arf GTPases and their Arf-GAPs during Golgi maturation have not been reported Here we use the budding yeast model to examine the temporal localization of the Golgi Arf-GAPs We also determine the mechanisms used by the Arf-GAP Age2 to localize to the Golgi We find that the catalytic activity of Age2 and a conserved sequence in the unstructured C-terminal domain of Age2 are both required for Golgi localization This sequence is predicted to form an amphipathic helix and mediates...

October 10, 2023

Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology is pleased to announce our 7th Institute Symposium on Cell Signaling and Molecular Dynamics, on October 10th, 2023 We will be joined by 7 distinguished scientists:   Tania Baker, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Thomas Bernhardt, Harvard University James Chen, University of Texas Southwestern Chuan He, The University of Chicago Titia de Lange, The Rockefeller University Seung Yon (Sue) Rhee, Carnegie Institute for Science Sara Wickstrom, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine     This year, we are also thrilled to present the inaugural Emerging Scholars Symposium on October 9th, 2023 The Weill Institute has selected 8 exceptional senior PhD students in the life sciences, from institutions throughout the US, to share their research and explore post-doctoral collaboration with the Cornell community   Registration for both events is open until Monday, September 25th, 2023, for all members of...

August 25, 2023

Eight graduate students from across the US to attend inaugural Weill Institute Emerging Scholars Symposium in Oct...

August 24, 2023

Dr Adrienne Roeder’s study of polyploid cells in the mustard-like plant Arabidopsis thaliana was featured in the August 2023 issue of Science News By mutating genes that control polyploidy, she and her team determined that polyploid cells are the key to proper flowering If the plant sepal had too few polyploid cells, it was stiff and upright and blooming was impeded Too many such cells caused the sepals to splay and expose the petals prematurely Roeder and her postdoc Batthula Vijaya Lakshmi Vadde discovered that normal, diploid cells turn into polyploid versions when a protein, ATML1, kickstarts the process, in part by stimulating the production of certain fatty acids Roeder’s graduate student Frances Clark has found that polyploidy, spurred by the same molecular signals, also shapes ordinary leaves In Arabidopsis, the first giant cells develop at a leaf’s tip when it is about 1 week old Then more such cells appear ever closer to the leaf base, forming on both the top and...

August 10, 2023

Brittany White-Mathieu, an alumna of the Baskin Lab, was the recipient of a Blavatnik Regional Award for Young Scientists for advancing the field of chemical imaging to further our understanding of lipids, and their role in cellular function and disease, including cancer She has created a revolutionary method, Lipid Expansion Microscopy, that enables super-resolution imaging of lipids within cells using widely available instrumentation White-Mathieu’s work enables direct study of these compounds in cellular membranes where critical cell signaling events and nutrient exchange occur White-Mathieu will begin a new faculty position at the University of New Hampshire in late August...

June 20, 2023

When a cell divides, faithfully replicating its DNA is essential – the life of the cell is on the line This year’s recipient of the 2023 Harry and Samuel Mann Outstanding Graduate Student Award, Jumana Badar, is carrying out research to determine how cells ensure DNA is replicated correctly, a question that is central to how healthy cells reproduce and how drugs that make this process more difficult for the cell could be optimized to target cancer cells , Click to open gallery view Credit: “I am honored and humbled to be chosen as this year’s recipient,” she said “This award will enable me to seek out opportunities to gain new skills and exercise the ones I already have” When cells replicate, the DNA strands must separate from one another to form what is called a “replication fork” to allow each strand to be copied A fifth-year PhD candidate in the lab of Marcus Smolka, Badar uses mass spectrometry-based proteomics in combination with genetics and functional...

May 19, 2023

Ari Broad received an Exemplary Service Award for Advanced Career Student at the 2023 Graduate Diversity & Inclusion Awards and Recognition Celebration This award honors Ari’s demonstrated track record of exemplary service to the Cornell graduate and professional student community, especially in the areas of diversity, inclusion, outreach, and student...

May 19, 2023

Jawuanna McAllister received the 2023 Social Justice Award at the 2023 Graduate Diversity & Inclusion Awards and Recognition Celebration This award honors Jawuanna’s demonstrated commitment to identifying and addressing inequities, creating avenues of access, advancing diversity and inclusion, and/or promoting human rights within and beyond...

May 19, 2023

Saket Bagde (Class of 2018) received 2022 Porter Prize for Research Excellence from the American Society for Cell Biology  This award is given to one graduate student on the basis of “individual scientific excellence, and the creativity and novelty of the research described”  Saket is mentored by Chris...

May 19, 2023

Saket Bagde (Class of 2018) was presented with the George P Hess Travel Award for 2023  Saket is mentored by Chris Fromme, who nominated him for this...

May 10, 2023

Will Comstock (Class of 2019) has been awarded an NIH F31 grant – Ruth L Kirschstein Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award – through the National Cancer Institute The purpose of this Kirschstein-NRSA program is to enable promising predoctoral students with potential to develop into a productive, independent research scientists, to obtain mentored research training while conducting dissertation...

April 15, 2023

Application deadline: April 15th, 2023 Introducing the inaugural Weill Institute Emerging Scholars Symposium on October 9th, 2023 To feature select senior PhD Students spotlighting their research and academic...

April 13, 2023

With a $3 million National Science Foundation grant, Cornell researchers are creating a new approach to architecture by learning how plants and animals form internal structures...

April 11, 2023

Have you ever had a nasty infection that just won’t seem to go away Or a runny nose that keeps coming back You may have been dealing with a bacterium that is tolerant of, though not yet resistant to, antibiotics Antibiotic resistance is a huge problem, contributing to nearly 127 million deaths worldwide in 2019 But antibiotic tolerance is a covert threat that researchers have only recently begun to explore Antibiotic tolerance happens when a bacterium manages to survive for a long time after being exposed to an antibiotic While antibiotic-resistant bacteria flourish even in the presence of an antibiotic, tolerant bacteria often exist in a dormant state, neither growing nor dying but putting up with the antibiotic until they can “reawaken” once the stress is gone Tolerance has been linked to the spread of antibiotic resistance I am a microbiologist who studies antibiotic tolerance, and I seek to uncover what triggers tolerant bacteria to enter a protective dormant slumber...

March 31, 2023

William Comstock (Class of 2019) was awarded the Calvo TA Award for his role in the course BioMG 3320 at the MBG Awards Ceremony...

March 21, 2023

Roeder Lab graduate student, Byron Rusnak, highlighted by First Author Profile in Plant...

March 6, 2023

Saket Bagde is a doctoral candidate in biochemistry, molecular and cell biology from Nagpur, India He earned his previous degrees at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Pune and University of Texas at El Paso and now studies the structure and function of complex molecular machines under the guidance of Chris Fromme at Cornell What is your area of research and why is it important The cells that make up living organisms contain countless moving parts that act as gears working to keep the cellular machinery functioning Just as the shape of the gears in a car and how they fit with each other determines their function, the shape of the proteins determines their function I study the structure and function of complex molecular machines One of my projects is aimed at studying how nature synthesizes antibiotics using molecular machines called modular polyketide synthases I also study how proteins and lipids are transported to the plasma membrane via the postal service of the...