News
Professor of cell biology Anthony P. Bretscher has been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, along with Catherine Lord, professor of psychology in pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. One of seven newly elected members in cellular and developmental biology, microbiology and immunology, Bretscher joined the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics in...
Scott D. Emr will give the 2017 Keith Porter Lecture at the 2017 ASCB|EMBO Meeting this December in Philadelphia. Emr is the Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of 1956 Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics and the first director of the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology at Cornell University. The Porter Lecture is named for Keith Porter, a pioneer in the use of electron microscopy in biology and a founder of...
A cellular biology “mystery” is closer to being solved, thanks to sleuthing in the lab of Jeremy Baskin, assistant professor and Nancy and Peter Meinig Family Investigator in the Life Sciences in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular...
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...
Assistant professors Jeremy Baskin, from the College of Arts and Sciences, and Pamela Chang, from the College of Veterinary Medicine, are among eight assistant professors across the nation to be named a Beckman Young Investigator, a prize is given to promising young faculty members in the early stages of their academic careers in the chemical and life...
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...
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...
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...
Sudeep Banjade, now a postdoctoral associate at Cornell University, won 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...
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...
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...
Between the cracks in the sidewalk sprouts a thin, green stem with fragile white flowers. It is overlooked by the masses of people who walk past it each day. Unknown to these individuals, however, is the significance of the Arabidopsis plant within the scientific community. In her lab, Prof. Adrienne Roeder, a Nancy M. and Samuel C. Fleming Term Assistant Professor at the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology, uses the Arabidopsis sepal as a model system to study the spatial and temporal development of...
In chemist Jeremy Baskin’s lab, new and innovative ways to illuminate and visualize the beginnings of lipid signaling pathways are being...
What makes flowers on a plant almost identical, or internal organs remarkably reproducible? A study of sepals in Arabidopsis plants published in the July 11 issue of the journal Developmental Cell has revealed the mystery of how such uniformity occurs. Though the research was done on sepals – the bud that holds a plant’s reproductive organs – the researchers suspect similar mechanisms apply to organ development in all organisms. The study was conducted by an interdisciplinary team led by Cornell...
Graduate students and postdoctoral scholars gathered in Stocking Hall recently to learn about a topic that’s strikingly absent at most universities: how to become a...
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...
Steve Halaby, a third-year doctoral student in the field of molecular biology and genetics, is passionate about educating the next generation and recruiting more minority students into science. “We need to invest in STEM now,” he...
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...
Fromme has been selected as a Visiting Fellow of Clare Hall, one of the colleges of University of Cambridge (U.K.), where he will conduct research at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular...
