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Researchers have identified a new way to fight infections like Lyme disease and syphilis by disrupting bacterial motility, preventing their spread through the body. The findings could have wide-ranging impacts on the treatment of infections in the future as concern about antibiotic-resistant strains grows. This research was conducted by members of the Weill Institute’s Crane lab as well as collaborators at West Virginia University and Virginia Commonwealth University, and was published in the journal ACS Chemical...
A study from Yu Lab researchers in the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology at Cornell University could enable a quantum leap forward in identifying and deciphering cancer-driving genetic mutations, the first step in developing effective...
Beth Ryan, a Chemistry and Chemical Biology graduate student in the Weill Institute’s Baskin Lab, has been chosen as a Young Scientist invited to attend the 74th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting on Chemistry, this June 2025. Nobel Laureates in Chemistry and 600 highly talented Young Scientists from around the world will come together in Lindau, Germany, for a unique week of scientific exchange, inspiration, and networking, during lectures, panel discussions, and small-size discussion sessions. Beth shared her enthusiasm and gratitude on earning this prestigious recognition: “I am incredibly excited to be selected to attend this year’s Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Chemistry. It is such a unique opportunity,” she said. “There is really no other situation...
ACS Chemical Biology and the ACS Division of Biological Chemistry have announced Dr. Jeremy Baskin of Cornell University as the recipient of the 2024 ACS Chemical Biology Young Investigator Award. This award honors the contributions of an early-career individual doing outstanding work in chemical biology. Dr. Baskin will present the ACS Chemical Biology Young Investigator Lecture during ACS Spring 2025 on Wednesday, March 26 from 2:00 PM – 4:50 PM in the San Diego Convention Center. Jeremy M. Baskin is Associate Professor, Nancy and Peter Meinig Family Investigator in the Life Sciences, and Director of the Chemistry–Biology Interface Program at Cornell University, with appointments in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and the Weill Institute for Cell and...
An interdisciplinary team of Cornell researchers, including Weill Institute faculty member Adrienne Roeder, is developing HelioSkin, an aesthetically appealing solar-collection fabric that is inspired by the biological mechanisms that enable plants to bend toward the...
Brian Crane, the George W. and Grace L. Todd Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology in the College of Arts and Sciences, has been appointed director of the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology, an interdisciplinary hub for life sciences research at Cornell. Crane brings to the institute decades of experience studying the structure, function and mechanism of the protein systems that underlie signal transduction. Crane’s appointment began on January 1, 2025. Scott Emr, the Samuel C. and Nancy M. Fleming Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, stepped down in July 2022 after serving as the institute’s director since its founding in 2008. Marcus Smolka, professor of molecular biology and genetics, served as the...
A major goal of cancer biology is to understand the mechanisms driven by somatically acquired mutations. Two distinct methodologies—one analyzing mutation clustering within protein sequences and 3D structures, the other leveraging protein-protein interaction network topology—offer complementary strengths. We present NetFlow3D, a unified, end-to-end 3D structurally-informed protein interaction network propagation framework that maps the multiscale mechanistic effects of mutations. Built upon the Human Protein Structurome, which incorporates the 3D structures of every protein and the binding interfaces of all known protein interactions, NetFlow3D integrates atomic, residue, protein and network-level information: It clusters mutations on 3D protein structures to identify driver mutations...
The stability of the genome relies on phosphatidyl inositol 3-kinase-related kinases (PIKKs) that sense DNA damage and trigger elaborate downstream signaling responses. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the Tel1 kinase (ortholog of human ATM) is activated at DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) and short telomeres. Despite the well-established roles of Tel1 in the control of telomere maintenance, suppression of chromosomal rearrangements, activation of cell cycle checkpoints, and repair of DSBs, the substrates through which Tel1 controls these processes remain incompletely understood. Here we performed an in-depth phosphoproteomic screen for Tel1-dependent phosphorylation events. To achieve maximal coverage of the phosphoproteome, we developed a scaled-up approach that accommodates large amounts...
Rab GTPases act as molecular switches to regulate organelle homeostasis and membrane trafficking. Rab6 plays a central role in regulating cargo flux through the Golgi and is activated via nucleotide exchange by the Ric1-Rgp1 protein complex. Ric1-Rgp1 is conserved throughout eukaryotes but the structural and mechanistic basis for its function has not been established. Here we report the cryoEM structure of a Ric1-Rgp1‐Rab6 complex representing a key intermediate of the nucleotide exchange reaction. Ric1-Rgp1 interacts with the nucleotide-binding domain of Rab6 using an uncharacterized helical domain, which we establish as a RabGEF domain by identifying residues required for Rab6 activation. Unexpectedly, the complex uses an arrestin fold to interact with the Rab6 hypervariable domain,...
As muscles age, their cells lose the ability to regenerate and heal after injury. Cornell Engineering researchers have created the most comprehensive portrait to date of how that change, in mice, unfolds over time and across the complicated architecture of muscle tissue. “The fundamental question that drove the initial study was really a question that had perplexed the skeletal muscle biology community,” said Ben Cosgrove, associate professor in the Cornell Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering and the paper’s senior author. “Does the decline in regeneration seen in old muscles come from changes to the stem cells that drive the repair process themselves, or does it come from changes in the way that they are instructed by other cell...
The Weill Institute has awarded Postdoctoral researcher Si Chen the 2024 Sam and Nancy Fleming Research Fellowship. This prestigious three-year fellowship supports 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 2024 recipient is a remarkable researcher. Her proposal to measure the interplay of mechanosensing and the mechanics of plant growth is highly innovative and is a great example for how science...
A new tool, called PIONEER, harnesses the power of AI and deep machine learning models to solve and predict how human proteins might interface and interact with other proteins. The tool can greatly accelerate fundamental research, clinical precision medicine and the development of therapies or the application of existing drugs to treat all types of disorders. “What we did here is solve structures for protein machineries that actually carry out cellular functions within cells,” said co-corresponding author Haiyuan Yu, Tisch University Professor in the Department of Computational Biology and a member of the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology. […] “Not only did we build this AI model, but we used it to solve all known protein interactions in human cells already,”...
Led by Dapeng Xiong, Yunguang Qiu, Junfei Zhao, Yadi Zhou, and Dongjin Lee, the Yu lab and collaborators have published an article in Nature Biotechnology that presents an ensemble deep learning framework, termed PIONEER (Protein–protein InteractiOn iNtErfacE pRediction), that predicts protein-binding partner-specific interfaces for all known protein interactions in humans, and seven other common model organisms to generate comprehensive structurally informed protein...
Bill Loftus, our Director of Operations, has been awarded a President’s Award for Employee Excellence, Thoughtful Leader Award. Read more about the President’s Awards...
Inle Bush (undergraduate student in the Han Lab) has been awarded a CAS Undergraduate Research Program grant, supporting the project: “Identification of Golgi Outpost Formation and Maturation Pathways in Drosophila melanogaster Neurons.” Congrats,...
Xander Lacrampe, a BCMB Graduate student in the Hu lab, has been awarded a Graduate School Dean’s Scholars Provost Diversity Fellowship. Congrats, Xander! Click here for more information about this...
A publication by Rebecca Z. Zawistowski (graduate student in the Crane Lab) in The Journal of Molecular Biology discusses how high pressure affects the structure of a protein called cytochrome c peroxidase (CcP). It shows that while the outer parts of the protein shrink and shift slightly under pressure, the core remains stable, protecting its key functions from...
TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43) is a DNA/RNA binding protein predominantly localized in the nucleus under physiological conditions. TDP-43 proteinopathy, characterized by cytoplasmic aggregation and nuclear loss, is associated with many neurodegenerative diseases, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD). Thus it is crucial to understand the molecular mechanism regulating TDP-43 homeostasis. Here, we show that the uptake of oligodeoxynucleotides (ODNs) from the extracellular space induces reversible TDP-43 cytoplasmic puncta formation in both neurons and glia. ODNs facilitate the liquid-liquid phase separation of TDP-43 in vitro. Importantly, persistent accumulation of DNA in the cytoplasm leads to nuclear depletion of TDP-43 and...
Lilijana Oliver is a doctoral student in plant biology from Rush, New York. She earned her B.S. at Yale University and now studies polyploidy in plant development under the guidance of Adrienne Roeder at Cornell. What is your area of research and why is it important? My research focuses on the role of polyploidy in plant development using the model organism Arabidopsis thaliana. Polyploidy occurs when a whole genome duplication event results in more than two copies of a genome per somatic cell. This may occur across every cell of an entire organism or only in specific cells. Polyploidy is widespread amongst plants, and has been linked to everything from their evolution, to stress response, to cell and organ size, and more. I aim to understand the mechanisms by which polyploidy alters...
