Graduate School of Medical Sciences
A partnership with the Sloan Kettering Institute

Science on the Road

Like scientists across the globe, our BCMB community members have faced unprecedented challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But the spirit of discovery never stops! And through perseverance, resilience, and innovation, our BCMB students have continued to conduct research and share their work with the wider scientific world:

  • In June 2020, Abderhman Abuhashem (Hadjantonakis lab) presented his work digitally through a poster presentation at the International Society for Stem Cell Research’s (ISSRC) 2020 virtual conference.
  • Also in June 2020, Fanying Tang (Khurana lab) presented a poster titled “Chromatin accessibility landscape and transcriptome of castration resistant prostate cancers reveals novel subtypes and diverse master regulators” at the virtual AARC Annual Meeting 2020. Fanying also presented a poster at the 13th Annual Multi-Institutional Prostate Cancer Program Retreat.
  • In April 2020, Sylvia Zohrabian (Intlekofer lab) attended the virtual conference “Cancer Metabolism and Signaling 2020” organized by the New York Academy of Sciences.
  • In February 2020, prior to the COVID-19 shutdown, Tapojyoti Das (Eliezer lab) was able to travel in person and present his work at the Biophysical Society Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA. He received the merit-based BPS Travel Award for this presentation. In addition, Tapojyoti is exciting to continue his work as an organizing member of Sci-ROI (Science and Research Opportunities in India, https://sciroi.net/) which aims to connect students and postdoctoral trainees in the US to academic, industry and entrepreneurial landscape in India. The last in-person meeting was held at the University of Chicago in September 2019, and this year there will be an online event in September 2020.
  • In January 2020, Allie Dananberg (Maciejowski lab) traveled to Palm Springs, CA, where she attended the 1st International Conference on Base Editing – Enzymes and Applications (Deaminet 2020). While there, she presented a poster titled “APOBEC3B induces kataegis in telomere crisis.”

Whether presenting a poster, giving a talk or just sharing skills and knowledge, our BCMB Students have continued to share their amazing work with the wider world! Just some of the amazing trips our BCMB-ers have made over the past 12 months include:

  • Christopher Noetzel (Kafsack lab) gained cutting-edge experience in Woods Hole, MA where he attended the 7-week training course “Biology of Parasitism: Modern Approaches “ from June to August 2019. This unique experience allowed Christopher to connect with experts and gain in-depth training in molecular parasitology.
  • Last month (July 2019), Carolyn Maskin (Houvras lab) traveled to Boston to attend the annual Zebrafish Disease Models Conference (ZDMS) for the second year in a row. While there, she won an award for her Flash Talk titled “A  total synthetic approach to CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing and homology-directed repair.” Congrats Carolyn!
  • Jiaqi Xu (Keeney lab) took a trip up north this past June where she presented a poster at both the Gordon Research Seminar and Gordon Research Conference “Chromosome Dynamics.”
  • Vidur Garg (Hadjantoankis lab) traveled to the ISSCR Annual meeting in Los Angeles, CA in June. While there, he presented a poster titled “Interrogating mechanisms driving the emergence of pluripotency using forward and reverse reprogramming strategies.” Prior to his cross-country trek, Vidur presented a poster in April 2019 at the Vincent du Vigneaud Memorial Research Symposium in NYC where he earned a second place prize for the second year in a row. Congrats Vidur!
  • Ashlesha Odak (Sadelain lab) gave an oral presentation titled “Novel Genomic Safe Harbors for effective T cell engineering” in April 2019, when she attended the annual meeting of American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy in Washington, DC. Ashlesha also received a travel award for her presentation! Congrats Ashlesha!
  • Theodoros Giavridis (Sadelain lab) hit the road in April 2019 where he gave an invited presentation at the 15th annual PEGS Boston Summit titled “The Myeloid System in Cytokine Release Syndrome.” This was Theo’s second invited presentation in 2019. Earlier in the year, Theo traveled to San Francisco, CA where he gave a talk titled “Mechanisms Driving CAR T cell-induced cytokine release syndrome." Theo also shared his work and experiences as a BCMB Student back in January 2019 during Cornell’s annual recruitment dinner! Thanks Theo!
  • April was off to a great start for Pradeep Ramalingam (Butler lab), who won a travel award for a poster presentation at the Hematopoietic Response to Stress workshop. Congrats Pradeep!
  • In March 2019, Nevin Yusufova (Melnick lab) flew to sunny Ventura, CA, where she presented a poster at the Gordon Research Conference “Stem Cells and Cancer.”
  • Alex Minikes (Jiang lab) shared his findings with international colleagues in November 2018 when he traveled to Suzhou, China to attended the first Cold Spring Harbor Asia conference “Iron, Reactive Oxygen Species & Ferroptosis in Life, Death & Disease.” While there, Alex presented a poster titled “Cystine deprivation induces mitochondrial lipid peroxidation.” 
  • In September 2018, Annum Munir (Shuman lab) kicked her academic year into high gear by presenting an oral talk at the monthly Molecular Biology Colloquium at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. This follows three meetings she attended in 2017 where she presented a poster at: a Regeneron forum in Tarrytown NY, a Gordon Research Conference in Biddeford, ME, and at the 37th Annual Vincent du Vigneaud Memorial Research Symposium in NYC. 
  • Molly Ting-Yu Lin (Cantley lab) presented her work to the global community when she presented a poster titled “Regulation of Nuclear factor-erythroid 2-related factor 2 (NRF2) by DNA Damage" at the 2018 ISREC “Horizons of Cancer Biology and Therapy” symposium in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The first half of 2018 was busy for BCMB students who were bitten by the travel bug. BCMB-ers presented their work at major meetings both near and far – some of these exciting student trips included:

  • In June 2018, Carolyn Maskin (Houvras lab), traveled to Madison, Wisconsin to present a poster of her work to over 700 attendees at the 13th International Zebrafish Conference.

  • Theodoros Giavridis (Sadelain lab) traveled to Chicago in May 2018 to attend the American Society of Cell & Gene Therapy (ASGCT) conference. While there, he gave a presentation of his PhD thesis work titled "Restraining macrophages alleviates CAR T cell-induced cytokine release syndrome and informs novel therapeutic interventions."

  • April 2018 was a busy month for Maria Bustillo (Zallen lab ), who presented a poster at the Northeastern Society for Developmental Biology meeting at Woods Hole, MA, and also attended the Vincent du Vigneaud Symposium where won she first place in the Student Oral Presentations category for her talk entitled “Ajuba stabilizes adhesion during tissue remodeling.”

  • Also in April 2018, Yujie Fan (Studer lab) attended the 2018 ENS conference in Boston, MA and presented a poster of her work "Derivation of human ENS lineages from sacral neural crest cells" as first author. This followed on the tails of a successful trip attending the NYSCF Conference in 2017.

  • Nicole Weiss (Luo lab ) who was awarded the Doris J. Hutchinson Fellowship – an internal award from the Sloan Kettering Division of Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences. This fellowship recognizes outstanding research under the mentorship of an MSK faculty member.  

  • In September 2017, Christopher Nötzel (Kafsack Lab) attended the 27th Annual Molecular Parasitology Meeting in Woods Hole, MA, where he was honored with the Best Full Length Talk award for his presentation “Single-cell RNA-seq reveals hidden signature of sexual commitment in malaria parasites." This continues the tradition from last year, when Christopher attended the 26th Annual Molecular Parasitology Meeting, and was honored with the Best Turbo Talk award for his presentation “Measuring stochastic gene expression in Plasmodium falciparum blood stages using highly parallel expression profiling of single cells." Christopher’s travels will continue in November 2017, when he attends the 66th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene thanks to a travel award from the ASTHM.  Learn more about the accomplishments of members of the entering class of 2015 here.

  • In August 2017, Yan Zhang (White lab)  was honored with a ZDM10 Conference Award for her poster “Insulin signalling regulates pigmentation via the sheddase BACE2.” Learn more about the accomplishments of members from the entering of the class of 2012 here.
  • In June 2017, Vidur Garg (Hadjantonakis lab) attended the 2017 ISSCR Annual Meeting in Boston, MA, where he presented his work "Distinct roles of FGFR1 and FGFR2 in the establishment of pluripotency in vivo". Learn more about the accomplishments of members of the entering class of 2013 here.
  • In March 2017, Ruoyao Chen (Overholtzer lab) traveled to Cancun, Mexico to attend the Fusion Cell Death, Cell Stress and Metabolism meeting where she won an award for her poster “Entosis is Induced by UV Radiation.” Ruoyao followed up her success with a trip to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in August, where she attended the 2017 Cell Death Meeting and gave a talk titled “Entosis is Induced by UV Radiation.” Learn more about the accomplishments of members of the entering class of 2014 here.