Axial - Rockefeller #1

Analysis of exciting Rockefeller life sciences inventors and their inventions

The Rockefeller University has been home to 25 Nobel Prize winners transforming biology and human health. With an incredible roster of talent, Rockefeller is set to transform life sciences this century.

Marraffini Lab

Understanding CRISPR-Cas immunity.

Recent

• A pioneer in the use of CRISPR; showing the a certain type of cutting (trans) of a CRISPR effector (Cas13) can halt the growth of an infected cell and actually provide herd immunity - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1257-5

  

Past

• Using CRISPR to edit bacterial genomes - https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.2508

• Great overview on how CRISPR systems imbue immunity for bacteria - https://www.cell.com/molecular-cell/fulltext/S1097-2765(14)00216-0

P. Cohen Lab

Characterizing the role of metabolism in obesity and related diseases.

Past

• A perspective from legends on the mechanism by which adipose cells store fat - http://pcohen.rockefeller.edu/Photos/Publications/PDF/Cohen_et_al_Cell_biology_of_fat_storage.pdf - important to treat obesity and type 2 diabetes.

• Overview of the biological pathways to link obesity to cancer - http://pcohen.rockefeller.edu/Photos/Publications/PDF/Ackerman%20et%20al%20Obesity%20Cancer.pdf

Brady Lab

Mining metagenomes for drugs.

Recent

• Recently reviewing the history of natural products from microbes and the role to discover new medicines - https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S1931-3128%2818%2930267-1

  

• Inventing a method to discover natural products without culturing - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-018-0110-1.pdf - using NGS and heterologous expression of bioactive clusters (that encode the natural product) discovering a new set of antibiotics:

Past

• Overview of the power of metagenomics to discover useful natural products - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3878715/ - focusing on soil-derived molecules (i.e. Arimetamycin A):

  

Allis Lab

Studying epigenetics and its role in disease.

Past

• Great profile of one of the labs defining the field of epigenetic - http://lab.rockefeller.edu/allis/assets/file/NASprofile.pdf - building the foundation for new medicines to be discovered.

• Fantastic overview on epigenetics, its history, and the field’s potential to improve human health - https://www.nature.com/articles/nrg.2016.59

  

Freiwald Lab

Understanding how neural systems process and represent information.

Recent

• Using functional MRI on macaque monkeys to discover that the posterior infero-temporal dorsal (PITD) area connects to the parietal and frontal cortex region to establish control of attention - https://elifesciences.org/articles/40520

  

Magnasco Lab

Computational and mathematical models to describe neurophysiological systems.

Recent

• Creating a model of neurons and their activity during anesthesia - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6426977/ - important to create frameworks to understand wakefulness/sleep spectrum.

Maimon Lab

Studying how the brain stores data and computes.

Recent

• Designing an elegant experiment in Drosophila that relies on chemogenetics to perturb neurons during movement - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-019-0444-x - figuring out that flies iteratively compare an internal model of position with environment feedback to stimulate neurons:

  

• In Drosophila characterizing the neurons that generate and update models for the direction of the head during movement - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959438818300072

Past

• Identifying the set of neurons in Drosophila that determine the angular heading - https://www.nature.com/articles/nature22343 - with the neurons existing in two classes that act specifically in the beginning and end, respectively during turns:

  

Zhao Lab

Studying phenotypic divergence and adaptation.

Recent

• Using single-cell RNA-seq to characterize the adult Drosophila testis - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/689687v1 - to understand how lineages are established during development: