Chaolin Zhang will receive a R56 award for $568,846 from NIH/NHGRI for “Mapping proximal and distal splicing-regulatory elements”. The aims of the project are to develop a high-throughput platform technology for screening of splicing-regulatory elements, to facilitate annotation of noncoding regions in the human genome and drug discovery.

Corrine Abate-Shen, PhD, Molecular Pharmacology and Therapeutics: $486,000 from the Department of the Army, Army Medical Research and Material Command for “Role of ATAD2 in prostate cancer bone metastasis.” 

Four research teams at Columbia University have been awarded the inaugural Edward P. Evans Center for Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS) Pilot Awards and Fellowships.

The center, established by the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center (HICCC) in December 2021, is dedicated to the study and treatment of MDS, a malignant disease that attacks bone marrow stem cells. Each year, more than 40,000 individuals are diagnosed with MDS, and roughly one-third will develop acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a severe and rapidly progressing form of blood cancer.

To support their research, each team will receive a one-year $100,000 grant for the Edward P. Evans Center Pilot Awards and a two-year $60,000/year grant for the fellowships. The two pilot projects are being led by principal investigators Pawel Muranski, MD, assistant professor of medicine and of pathology and cell biology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons (VP&S); Amer Assal, MD, assistant professor of medicine at VP&S; and Raul Rabadan, PhD, professor of systems biology and of biomedical informatics at VP&S. The two fellowships have been awarded to Rossella Labella, PhD, postdoctoral research scientist in the Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics(link is external and opens in a new window), and Junsong Zhou, PhD, associate research scientist in the Department of Rehabilitation and Regenerative Medicine. 

Read full article on HICCC Newsroom.

Adolfo Ferrando, MD, PhD, and Raul Rabadan, PhD, Institute for Cancer Genetics: $2,500,000 over five years from the National Institute on Aging for “The role of PHF6 in the control of hematopoietic stem cell aging.” 

Rodney Joel Rothstein, PhD, Genetics & Development: $3,924,540 over five years from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for “Molecular mechanisms underlying recombination at DNA double-strand breaks and stalled replication forks.” 

Michael Shen, PhD, Genetics & Development, will receive $1,950,515 over five years from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for “Genetic Approaches to Development and Disease.”

Michael Shen, PhD, the Arthur J. Antenucci Professor of Medical Sciences and  professor of genetics, urology, and systems biology at Columbia’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, has been named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)(link is external and opens in a new window). Dr. Shen, who also co-leads the Tumor Biology and Microenvironment research program at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center (HICCC), joins four other Columbia faculty members who have been elected to the 2021 class of AAAS fellows.

Read full article on Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center News Page

Chaolin Zhang, PhD, Associate Professor in Systems Biology will receive $2,766,392 over five years from the National Insititue of Neurological Disorders and Stroke for “RNA regulatory networks in neuronal cell type diversity and function”. This award will support Dr. Zhang to understand better post-transcriptional gene expression regulation through specific protein -RNA interactions, or RNA-regulatory networks which is critical for expanding the complexity of the mammalian nervous system with implications in an expanding list of neuronal disorders. The proposed studies will investigate alternative splicing regulation in generating the distinct molecular programs in diverse neuronal cell types of mouse cortex. Information obtained in this project will provide insights into the fundamental mechanisms that controls such diversity as well as the functional consequences in defined, clinically relevant neuronal cell types.

Honoring outstanding postdoctoral scientists from academic research institutions across New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, the Blavatnik Family Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences announced the three Winners and six Finalists of the 2021 Blavatnik Regional Awards for Young Scientists. 

Biologists aspire to understand every gene’s contribution to an organism’s biology and behavior. Microbiologist Wenyan Jiang has helped repurpose the CRISPR-Cas system, an immune system of many bacteria, and co-opt it to upgrade the way many scientists control and examine the genome. Jiang developed a groundbreaking tool called CRISPR Adaptation-mediated Library Manufacturing (CALM), which exploits CRISPR RNA, a type of RNA naturally found in bacteria. CALM has enabled scientists to quickly determine the causal link between genes and bacterial behaviors such as antibiotic resistance and pathogenesis and pave the way for developing new, effective antimicrobial drugs. 

Read full article on Blavatnik Award site