Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences

WCGS Class of 2009 alumnus Dr. Ian White, founder and chief scientific officer at NeoBiosis, says "long haulers are experiencing post-viral syndrome, not uncommon after the body fights off a virus."

As we celebrate Black History Month and continue our efforts to uplift Black communities, we want to recognize and highlight our amazing students who have contributed greatly to the Weill Cornell community, both in academics and service. Join us as WCGS continues to pause, listen, reflect, and work towards diversity, equity, and inclusion. Today, we’re excited to announce our inaugural #BlackHistoryMonth student takeover series, starting with Christopher Bourne. Christopher B...ourne is a 4th year PhD student in the Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis (IMP) program. His research focuses on couples small-molecule drug delivery and CAR T cell therapy. Chris is also a board member of Black in Cancer and co-chair of the WCGS Social Justice and Anti-Racism Task Force. Raised in New Jersey, Chris spends his free time cycling around the city, cooking, and playing with his dog. Chris will be sharing his experience as a PhD student on Thursday, February 11. Be sure to tune in!

As 2020 comes to a close, we are grateful to the Weill Cornell Graduate School community for its dedication and resilience. Wishing our students, faculty, alumni, staff and families a joyous and healthy holiday season, and looking forward to a bright 2021.

Nevin Yusufova (Ph.D. ’20), a recent graduate of the BCMB Allied program, has been interested in drug discovery since her undergraduate studies at Colgate University where she synthesized bioactive small molecules for further testing in cellular models. Recently, her work in the Melnick Lab determined that the Histone H1 gene is a tumour suppressor and that mutations in H1 drive malignant transformation through three-dimensional genome reorganization, which leads to epigenetic reprogramming and derepression of developmentally silenced genes. This effort resulted in a first author paper in Nature entitled Histone H1 Loss Drives Lymphoma by Disrupting 3D Chromatin Architecture. Visit our student research website to read more: http://bit.ly/WCGSresearch

Have you ever thought about how exercise, metabolism, and environmental factors work together? Meet Katherine Lopez, a native New Yorker and fifth-year neuroscience PhD student in the Miklos Toth Lab. Katherine’s research focuses on using behavioral studies to investigate the impact of high caloric diets and sedentary lifestyles. I chose Weill Cornell Graduate School (WCGS) because of its flexibility, ranging from doing lab rotations under the guidance of faculty in other de...partments, to choosing a mentor in any one of a variety of disciplines within WCGS and Sloan-Kettering Institute (SKI), says Katherine. In addition to her work in the lab, Katherine also contributed greatly to the Weill Cornell community. She was the treasurer of the Tri-Institutional Minority Society (@tims_nyc) from 2018-2020, and she has also served as a mentor in the TIMS Summer Scholar Research Program which aims to expose minority undergraduates to biomedical research and increase minority recruitment and retention in the science field. Early this year, Katherine has been actively involved and served as the event coordinator for the Science and Education Policy Association (@sepanyc). Katherine will be presenting her poster entitled Maternal Postpartum Exercise Mitigates the Metabolic Cost of a Fat Rich Diet, at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science (@aaasorg) this month. To learn more about their research, visit the Toth Lab: https://www.tothlab.com/ #neuroscience #research #AAASmtg

The coronavirus did not stop @WeillCornellGS BCMB program from holding its annual scientific retreat, a yearly highlight for faculty and students. This year’s retreat kicked off with a virtual Art Show to showcase the passion and creativity of our students, followed by scientific talks by BCMB students, postdocs, and an alumni keynote speaker. This multi-day event also included a virtual poster session, more scientific talks, the faculty roast, and student-led virtual games.... Over 110 members of the BCMB community attended the retreat a testament to our efforts to enhance collaborations and foster community building. Thank you for everyone’s involvement, and congratulations to the following winners. Pic 1: Scientific Art Category Priya Bhardwaj (@kristybrownlab) Pic 2: Non-scientific Art Category Ben Allwein (Rich Hite Lab) Pic 3: Poster Winners Avital Shulman (Bryan Tsou Lab) and Björn Perder (Jingli Cao Lab)

Remember to check back this coming Tuesday, Feb. 2nd, for our next student takeover. Michelle Tang (@michelletangxr) is a first-year PhD student in the BCMB Allied program. She is currently doing rotations and her research interest focuses on transcriptional regulations and epigenetics. Michele says her favorite thing about WCGS is the diverse and welcoming community. Outside of the lab, she loves dancing and doing K-pop dance covers.

COVID-19 is the disease on everyone’s mind this year. Despite being a viral disease, it does share some characteristics with TB, which is a bacterial infection: both diseases primarily affect the respiratory system, and both have reached pandemic status in terms of their infection rate and global reach. Unlike vaccine candidates for COVID, however, the search for a truly effective TB vaccine is still in progress. In order to protect ourselves from potentially contracting TB d...uring the course of our work, researchers who study this disease employ several levels of personal protective equipment (PPE) to keep ourselves safe. These include breathing protection, an impermeable suit that covers the entire body, and a double glove policy, in addition to working within a specially designed facility that filters the air. These precautions allow scientists like me to test drug candidates on live, virulent bacteriawhich gives us the most accurate sense of how these medicines will work against real TB infections. The information obtained from our studies here will be translated into animal studies and, hopefully, clinical trials in humans. Swipe to see some images I snapped in the biosafety level 3 lab today, including live TB cells in both liquid and solid nutrient medium, as well as an experiment I performed that shows the efficacy of our drug candidate.

Hi there! My name is Kyle, and I’ve taken over the WCGS Instagram today to share a bit about my day-to-day life as a PhD student. My research focuses on tuberculosis (TB), an infectious disease that kills over 1 million people EACH YEAR across the globe. The standard treatment for TB takes six months to complete and consists of four drugs that can cause debilitating side effects. As if that wasn’t bad enough, rates of resistance to these drugs are increasing rapidly, which ma...kes the search for safer and more effective medicines for this disease a matter of extreme urgency. As a student in the pharmacology department at Weill Cornell, my project lies at the intersection of bacterial biochemistry and drug development. I am working to understand the mechanism of action of an investigational anti-TB drug, which would be the first of its kind and represent a new strategy in fighting to end the TB pandemic. Follow along with my posts and stories today to get a glimpse of what my grad school experience is like! #TakeoverThursday #STEM #PhDChat

We are excited to continue our Student Takeover series where you get a glimpse into a day in the life of being a graduate student at @weillcornellgs. Kyle Planck (he/him) is a fourth year Ph.D. student in the pharmacology program and an NIH F31 fellow. His laboratory research contributes to developing effective and safer antibiotics for tuberculosis, which remains the world’s leading cause of death from an infectious disease. As a queer, first-generation college student, he i...s passionate about science communication and eliminating disparities in healthcare, and when he isn’t in the lab, he can most likely be found exploring the neighborhoods of NYC with a cold brew in hand. Follow along for this #ThursdayTakeover to meet Kyle (@pharmakyle), and learn about his research and WCGS.

Happy Friday and have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Teng Han, a recent graduate in the BCMB program and his mentor, Dr. Lucas Dow, led an innovative study that combined a 3D organoid culture system of the colon with genome editing to reveal genetic and microenvironmental factors that drive WNT inhibitor resistance in colorectal cancer. Zhen Cao and Fanying Tang, two BCMB students also collaborated on the project. The main findings show that intestinal cancer cells can bypass WNT signaling dependence by lineage reversion to fetal-like intestinal state. This discovery provides insight as to why some WNT-targeted therapies may fail in colorectal cancer. To learn more about the group’s discovery, read the newly published paper: https://bit.ly/3daiKb7

Check out the first audiobook biography published about Weill Cornell Medicine alumnus Dr. Anthony Fauci (MD '66). Journalist Michael Specter explores Dr. Fauci's career and the challenges he faced during the COVID-19 pandemic. #WCM #wcmalumni #covid19

The Fall 2021 Ph.D. online application is open and we are accepting applications until December 1, 2020. GRE scores are optional for all of our doctoral programs. Application link in bio.

Yesterday, Dean Hempstead resumed the ‘Dinner with the Dean Series’, which is traditionally held in person. This virtual event offered an opportunity for PhD students to interact with the Dean, maintain social distancing, and enjoy a meal provided by WCGS. The small group and relaxed setting allowed students to share their experiences, concerns, and suggestions they might have had.

Are you looking for biomedical science training programs? Join @weillcornellgs at the IVY + Recruitment Fair on September 17 at 11:30am to 2:30pm to learn about our PhD programs and summer research opportunities. Registration link in our profile.

Are you looking for graduate programs and schools in biomedical science? Register to join @weillcornellgs at the IVY + Recruitment Fair on September 17 at 11:30am to 2:30pm to learn about our PhD programs and summer research opportunities. Registration link in our profile.

People assume cancer is caused by oncogenes with a single driver mutation. In a study conducted in the laboratory of Dr. Barry S. Taylor, Alexander N. Gorelick, PhD student in the Tri-I Program in Computational Biology & Medicine found important oncogenes that drive cancer through 2+ mutations, which can increase or change their function. We called them ‘composite mutations’, and they’re extremely common, in ~25% of all cancers, explains Gorelick. To learn more about the group’s discovery, read their newly published paper in Nature at the link in our bio.

Today, we welcome the PhD Class of 2020 to our WCM community! We kicked off the Fall 2020 Orientation with a virtual welcome from Dean Barbara Hempstead. In the next few days, you will learn about the academic, career, diversity and inclusion, health and wellness, and other resources on campus designed to support our graduate students.... We also want to give a huge shout out to our Orientation Chairs, faculty and students for their help in welcoming all of our new students and helping them adjust to campus life.

Congratulations to WCGS alumnus David Egan, PhD '97, CEO of Core Life Analytics on securing 1m Series A financing. The investor team is composed of BOM Brabant Ventures, Utrecht Holdings and TechFund One. #WCM #WCMAlumni https://www.health-holland.com//core-life-analytics-closes

Join WCM alumni in taking the #FitfortheFrontLine challenge in honor of health care workers! Post a healthy activity with #FitfortheFrontLine & challenge friends & family to donate & do the same. Any exercise counts! Now is the time to get involved!

Dean Augustine M.K. Choi provides insights in Newsweek addressing key takeaways from #COVID19 that can help improve U.S. healthcare. "It is not too soon to incorporate the insights gained at the pandemic epicenter to improve patient care in lasting ways." https://bit.ly/2M8fxMA

Important message from Dr. Fauci to all of our 2020 graduates.

Congratulations to all of our graduating students on your outstanding achievements! Best wishes to you and we can’t wait to hear about your new achievements. And thank you to all the family, friends and faculty for joining us on this special day. #WCM2020