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Chaolin Zhang, PhD, receives R56 Award from NIH/NHGRI

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.

 
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Andrea Califano, PhD, receives grant from the National Cancer Institute

Andrea Califano will receive  $4,893,902 over five years from the National Cancer Institute for “Elucidating and Targeting tumor dependencies and drug resistance determinants at the single cell level”. The aims of the project are to elucidate Master Regulators representing non-oncogene dependencies of molecularly distinct malignant subpopulations coexisting in the same tumor to support novel combination and sequential therapy approaches.

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Columbia’s Edward P. Evans Center for Myelodysplastic Syndromes Awards Inaugural Grants and Fellowships

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.

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Michael Shen, PhD, Leading Researcher in Genitourinary Cancers, Named AAAS Fellow

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

 

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Lancet Publication: "The Art of Medicine: Knowing, Seeing, and Telling in Medicine" by Dr. Rita Charon (featuring DSB Chair, Andrea Califano, PhD)

A discussion with Andrea Califano(link is external and opens in a new window) and narrative medicine writer Rita Charon, "Aflight in ideas and visions, he and his colleagues in systems biology have been soaring toward what Califano predicts as the Golden Age of Biology. Not unlike the golden ages of physics and chemistry, when Newton and Lavoisier broke through conceptual barriers to see with new minds, this age equips biology for flight"

Read full article on Narratives of Discovery page.

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New award for Chaolin Zhang

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.

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Chaolin Zhang, 2021 Genomics of ASD: Pathways to Genetic Therapies awardee

Chaolin Zhang, PhD, Associate Professor in Systems Biology will receive $1,200,000 over three years from The Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) via the 2021 Genomics of ASD: Pathways to Genetic Therapies Initiative.  Grants funded through this Initiative are intended to leverage current knowledge about risk genes for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) into the development of new genetic therapies.  Leveraging the target discovery platform developed by the lab, Dr. Zhang’s research goal on this project focuses on restoring functional protein production using antisense oligos (ASOs) by modulating the alternative splicing as potential therapeutics. 

Read full article on Simons Foundation website.

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Wenyan Jiang from Dr. Saeed Tavazoie's Lab Chosen as a Blavatnik Award Finalist

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

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New award for Harris Wang

Harris Wang receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science for the development and application of Multiplex Automated Genome Engineering (MAGE), a new framework for manipulating DNA to produce synthetic or engineered recombinant genetic material, and for his use of CRISPR technology to track and record transient cellular processes in the human gut microbiome. Born in Beijing, China, Wang is an associate professor at Columbia University in New York.

The 2022 Vilcek Foundation Prizes in Biomedical Science are a part of the Vilcek Foundation Prizes program. In 2022, the foundation is awarding the Vilcek Foundation Prizes in Biomedical Science, the Vilcek Foundation Prizes in Dance, and the Vilcek Prize for Excellence.

See full article on Vilcek Foundation site.

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New award for Tal Korem

Tal Korem, PhD, Systems Biology and Obstetrics & Gynecology, will receive $3,404,285 over five years from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for "A large scale investigation of the vaginal metagenome and metabolome and their role in spontaneous preterm birth”.
 
This award will support the efforts of the Korem lab, along with Co-Investigators Dr. Anne-Catrin Uhlemann (Department of Medicine) and Dr. Ronald Wapner (Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology), to understand the role of the vaginal microbiome in preterm birth, the leading cause of neonatal morbidity and mortality. The investigators will generate a dataset of paired vaginal microbiome and metabolome measurements from samples collected along pregnancy in a large prospective cohort. Using this data, they will seek to identify new biomarkers for early identification of preterm birth and investigate the metabolic mechanisms that potentially underly it. 
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New Award for Barry Honing

Barry Honig, PhD, Systems Biology, will receive $2,025,000 over four years from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for “Genome-Wide Structure-Based Analysis of Protein-Protein Interactions and Networks.”

Read full article in CUIMC Newsroom.

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