Research in the Department of Cell Biology is focused on understanding molecular mechanisms of gene regulation in eukaryotic cells. Using mammalian cells, yeast, viruses, fruit flies and transgenic mice, we are investigating mechanisms of DNA replication and repair, control of the cell cycle and apoptosis, roles for transcriptional regulation and chromatin structure in gene expression, RNA processing, intracellular trafficking, membrane fusion and budding, mechanisms of generating antibody diversity, and the functions of cell surface sugars.
In the News
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Welcome Gianette Fata - New Cell Biology Office Member
Gianette Fata has joined our department as the new administrative assistant in the Cell Biology Office. Please stop by the office in Chanin 405 to welcome Gianette to Cell Biology. Gianette's email is gianette.fata@einstein.yu.edu. |
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The Department of Cell Biology would like to extend a very warm welcome to our newest faculty member, Assistant Professor Dr. Samir Parekh. Dr. Parekh completed his subspecialty training in Hematology and Oncology at Montefiore Medical Center and continued working in Dr. Ari Melnick’s lab at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine as a postdoctoral researcher in lymphoid malignancies. He is a recipient of a Paul Calabresi Award, ASCO Young Investigator Award, Gabrielle’s Angel Foundation Award and Leukemia Lymphoma Society Translational Research Project Grant. His lab's current work focuses on epigenomic analysis of lymphomas for novel drug and biomarker discovery. He is also a clinical investigator involved in several ECOG, AMC and investigator initiated trials in the hematological malignancies.
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Catherine Wang, a High School Student in the Skoultchi Lab, Named an Intel Semifinalist.
Catherine Wang was one of eight students from the Bronx High School of Science who have been named Intel semifinalists.
Catherine Wang’s research focused on gene expression and regulation in fruit flies and may apply to development, cancer, and aging in humans. She worked with Drs. Arthur Skoultchi and Xingwu Lu of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Her teacher at Bronx Science is Dr. Marisa Wagner of the Biology Department. Link to Article
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The Department of Cell Biology would like to extend a very warm welcome to our newest faculty member, Assistant Professor Dr. Wenjun Guo. In addition to his Cell Biology appointment, Dr. Guo will be a member in the newly established Ruth L. and David S. Gottesman Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, under the direction of Dr. Paul Frenette who led the recruitment of Dr. Guo to Einstein. Dr. Guo was most recently a postdoctoral fellow in Professor Robert Weinberg’s lab at the Whitehead Institute at MIT, where he did outstanding work on the mechanisms controlling the induction and maintenance of mammary stem cells and their relevance to breast cancer. Beginning in October, his laboratory will be located in the Price Center Room 122. |
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New Pulications
New Paper from Two Recent Ph.D. Graduates of the Department of Cell Biology – In this paper, Drs. Sabrina Volpe and Sandeep Wontakal, two recent Ph.D. Graduates of the Department of Cell Biology, and Michelle Maxson a student in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, describe the origins of and their experiences initiating the first student-run course at Einstein. This article also contains a very useful compilation of suggested “landmark” papers in numerous fields of biomedical science. From Bio 101 to Pillars of Biology: A Pedagogical Experiment. Michelle E. Maxson, MS, Sabrina A. Volpi, PhD,and Sandeep N. Wontakal, PhD Einstein Journal of Biology and Medicine. 2011; 27(2):86-93.
New Paper from the Skoultchi lab- Wontakal SN, Guo X, Smith C, Maccarthy T, Bresnick EH, Bergman A, Snyder MP, Weissman SM, Zheng D, Skoultchi AI. A core erythroid transcriptional network is repressed by a master regulator of myelo-lymphoid differentiation. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Mar 6;109(10):3832-7. Epub 2012 Feb 22.
New Paper from the Guo lab- Guo W, Keckesova Z, Donaher JL, Shibue T, Tischler V, Reinhardt F, Itzkovitz S, Noske A, Zürrer-Härdi U, Bell G, Tam WL, Mani SA, van Oudenaarden A, Weinberg RA. Slug and sox9 cooperatively determine the mammary stem cell state. Cell. 2012 Mar 2;148(5):1015-28.
New Paper from the Kielian lab- Liu Y. C. and Kielian M. Identification of a Specific Region in the E1 Fusion Protein Involved in Zinc Inhibition of Semliki Forest Virus Fusion. J. Virol. April 2012 86:3588-3594
New Paper from the Birshtein lab- Volpi SA, Verma-Gaur J, Hassan R, Ju Z, Roa S, Chatterjee S, Werling U, Hou H Jr, Will B, Steidl U, Scharff M, Edelman W, Feeney AJ, Birshtein BK. Germline Deletion of Igh 3' Regulatory Region Elements hs 5, 6, 7 (hs5-7) Affects B Cell-Specific Regulation, Rearrangement, and Insulation of the Igh Locus. J. Immunol. 2012 Feb 17.