As a third-year medical student, Stone Streeter cut his teeth during his medical education at Weill Cornell Medicine while living in the institution’s student housing—first at Olin Hall during his classroom instruction, then at Lasdon House for his clerkships. As he eyes his last year at Weill Cornell Medical College, he’s preparing for yet another move: to the Feil Family and Weill Family Residence Hall.

“Now, I’m standing here today, a mosaic of past experiences, ready to tackle the final stages of my medical education,” he said.

A major new effort at Weill Cornell Medicine seeks to catalog the normal human virome, the immense ecosystem of viruses that lives in and on us. The work, part of a multi-institution collaboration called Viromes Across Space and Time (VAST), supported by the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health, will pioneer new techniques, illuminate a crucial aspect of human biology that was impossible to study before, and establish a baseline set of data that could help in preventing, diagnosing and treating disease.

The way DNA folds inside the nucleus of brain cells may hold the key to understanding a devastating form of brain cancer called glioblastoma, suggests a new preclinical study from Weill Cornell Medicine researchers. The findings, published April 3 in Molecular Cell, offer a new way to think about cancer beyond gene mutations, based on the way that genes are connected and regulated in three-dimensional space.

A new study from Weill Cornell Medicine provides insights into how cells maintain the tiny end caps of chromosomes as they divide, a key process in keeping cells healthy. Using yeast, the researchers reveal protein interactions that could explain how the enzyme telomerase is tightly regulated to prevent cells from dividing uncontrollably or aging prematurely. The preclinical study, published April 17 in Nucleic Acids Research, brings us closer to understanding the mechanisms behind aging and cancer.

Bacteria naturally present in the human intestine, known as the gut microbiota, can transform cholesterol-derived bile acids into powerful metabolites that strengthen anti-cancer immunity by blocking androgen signaling, according to a preclinical study led by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators. The study was published on April 15 in Cell.

A new, error-corrected method for detecting cancer from blood samples is much more sensitive and accurate than prior methods and may be useful for monitoring disease status in patients following treatment, according to a study by Weill Cornell Medicine and New York Genome Center investigators. The method, based on whole-genome sequencing of DNA, also represents an important step toward the goal of routine blood test-based screening for early cancer detection.

Weill Cornell Medicine’s Celebration of Diversity honored leaders who go beyond their official roles, dedicating time, energy and empathy to build inclusive environments. The ceremony, part of the institution’s seventh annual Diversity Week, was held April 7 in Griffis Faculty Club.

Linoleic acid, an omega-6 fatty acid found in seed oils such as soybean and safflower oil, and animal products including pork and eggs, specifically enhances the growth of the hard-to-treat “triple negative” breast cancer subtype, according to a preclinical study led by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators. The discovery could lead to new dietary and pharmaceutical strategies against breast and other cancers.