As we age our body accumulates damaged “senescent” cells that our immune system is no longer able to effectively eliminate. Senescent cells are responsible for the development of aging and age-related diseases like cancer or fibrosis. My group studies how senescent cells evade the immune system thereby identifying new therapeutic approaches.

During a conversation, our brain must interpret what we hear and control our vocal response. How does the brain transform these auditory sensations into action? My laboratory uses singing mice as a model system to investigate the neural circuits in the brain that underlie vocal communication in mammals.

Richard Barakat, MD, is an internationally recognized surgeon and clinical investigator. He leads all of cancer services and research at Northwell Health, including the Cancer Institute, which treats more than 19,000 new patients each year.

Are you really what you eat? Our goal is to uncover the precise mechanisms that link nutrition to organismal health and disease states at the cellular and molecular level. A particular focus in our lab is to understand how dietary perturbations affect the immune system and contribute to the risk of diseases that are associated with immune dysfunction such as cancer.

Patients with cancer frequently experience debilitating symptoms that can impair quality of life and reduce odds of survival. These include drastic changes in appetite, sleep/wake cycles, cognitive function, and pain, among others. Our lab aims to uncover mechanistic interactions between the brain and cancer that drive these phenomena. Reciprocally, we investigate how manipulation of specific brain circuits influences cancer processes in the body.

My research interests are in the molecular genetics, genetics, and genomics of gynecologic and breast cancers. Currently I am focused on the early natural histories of ovarian carcinoma and metastatic breast cancer, the genomics of ovarian cancer stem/progenitor cells, and the hypothesis that most breast cancers result from polygenic susceptibility.

RNA interference (RNAi) and CRISPR are widely used to functionally investigate mammalian genomes. It is our goal to develop and optimize these gene perturbation platforms to improve their effectiveness in understanding the biology of diseases.

The trillions of connections between brain cells enable complex thought and behavior. These connections are wired with great precision through both genetics and in response to an organism’s experiences. Our lab seeks to understand how experiences engage specialized immune cells called microglia to shape the connectivity and function of the brain. We are further interested in how impairments in these processes can contribute to neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism.

We develop innovative mass spectrometry-based approaches to measure how protein activities are regulated under physiologic conditions and in pathological states.

How do we identify and describe the step-by-step computations of the brain? The Cowley group identifies data-driven models of neural responses and behavior by coupling data collection with model training during closed-loop experiments. We condense these models into compact, interpretable forms—allowing us to describe the complicated computations of the brain in a clear and concise way.

Among the changes that occur during pregnancy, those affecting the breasts have been found to subsequently modify breast cancer risk. My laboratory investigates how the signals present during pregnancy permanently alter the way gene expression is controlled and how these changes affect normal and malignant mammary development.

The nervous system transmits information by passing chemical signals from one nerve cell to the others. This signal transmission relies on a variety of proteins to receive and transmit the chemical signals. My group studies the structure and function of neurotransmitter receptors and ion channels that regulate fundamental neuronal activities.

My major areas of interest are gene regulation and the history of molecular biology.

I am interested in structural and biochemical characterization of RNA binding proteins involved in miRNA biogenesis. A detailed understanding of the molecular mechanism might lead to development of novel therapeutics against cancer.

Dr. Sepideh Gholami MD, MAS is a board-certified surgeon scientist with dual fellowship training in Complex General Surgical Oncology and Hepatopancreatobiliary Surgery. Dr. Gholami serves as the Director of the Liver Multidisciplinary Clinic, Hepatic Artery Infusion Pump Program, and Translational Research in Surgical Oncology at Northwell Health. She has focused her efforts on building a multidisciplinary liver surgery program with liver-directed therapies/regional therapies, including a hepatic artery infusion pump program for patients with hepatobiliary and metastatic malignancies. Dr. Gholami’s mission is to diversify and improve the research and clinical trial portfolio at Northwell Health Cancer Institute. She also has a joint appointment as an Adjunct Associate Professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Only a small portion of the RNAs encoded in any genome are used to make proteins. My lab investigates what these noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) do within and outside of cells, where regulators of their expression are located in the genome. This is particularly important in cancer. Our laboratory works on endometrial cancer and its relationship to age and obesity.

I came to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory at the end of 1972 and to my current position as dean of academic affairs via a somewhat circuitous route. I did my predoctoral research in bacterial genetics at Columbia University, and then began my postdoctoral research on the lac operon and l bacteriophage gene regulation at Harvard Medical School. After earning a Ph.D., I decided to switch to a eukaryotic system and work with adenovirus and SV40 at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which at the time was one of the few centers for research on eukaryotic molecular genetics. About six months after I arrived at the Laboratory, I accepted a staff position, and I have been here ever since. During the time I worked as a bench scientist, I started organizing the annual DNA Tumor Virus Meeting and the Laboratory’s molecular genetics courses. In 1986, I became assistant director for academic affairs.

Academic affairs at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory includes the organization of meetings and short postgraduate courses that we offer in the spring, summer, and fall. These are run and managed by the courses and meetings program headed by David Stewart, Executive Director of Meetings and Courses. Since 1989, I have also been the editor of Genes & Development, one of the five research journals published by the Laboratory Press. The journal has expanded enormously and, in recent years, we have added an assistant editor, a post that has always been filled by a former graduate student at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

As organisms develop, genes turn on and off with a precise order and timing, much like the order and duration of notes in a song. My group uses model organisms to understand the molecules that control the tempo of development. We also study how changes in the timing of gene expression contribute to diseases like cancer.

The brain-body interaction is a two-sided coin: The brain can control movement of the body to fulfill behaviors, and behavior itself can affect brain function. We study how the brain orchestrates motor and physiological control in natural and innate behaviors, focusing on facial expression.

Every gene has a job to do, but genes rarely act alone. Biologists have built models of molecular interaction networks that represent the complex relationships between thousands of different genes. I am using computational approaches to help define these relationships, work that is helping us to understand the causes of common diseases including autism, bipolar disorder, and cancer.

I am interested in elucidating the molecular mechanisms of splice-site recognition and selection in mammalian pre-mRNA splicing. My research involves sequence elements in cis and protein factors in trans, as well as antisense oligonucleotides and small-molecule drugs. My PhD work in Tokyo focused on post-transcriptional RNA modifications on spliceosomal components that influence the efficiency and fidelity of splicing. I continue to tackle the challenges and mysteries of the splicing code, utilizing various tools of molecular biology, biochemistry, and biostatistics.

My lab studies genes and signals in cells that regulate the growth and shape of plants. We have discovered several genes that control plant architecture by exerting an influence on stem cells. By identifying the genes that control the number of stem cells in corn plants, for example, we’ve discovered a means of boosting the yield of that vital staple.