CZ Biohub New York is welcoming nine new Investigators, including Kivanç Birsoy and Ekaterina Vinogradova! They will join the mission to harness and bioengineer immune cells for the early detection, prevention, and treatment of a broad spectrum of age-related diseases, including neurodegenerative disorders and aggressive cancers. The new hashtag#CZBiohubNY Investigators come from Columbia University, Yale University, and The Rockefeller University. The Biohub Network Investigator Program enables scientists to conduct high-risk, high-reward research in a vibrant, collaborative community. Learn more:
Rockefeller's Leslie Vosshall has been named the 2025 Edward M. Scolnick Prize winner! She is honored for her discovery of the neural mechanisms underlying mosquito host-seeking behavior. The prize is awarded annually by the McGovern Institute at MIT to recognize outstanding advances in the field of neuroscience. Congratulations!
30 years after discovering leptin, Jeff Friedman's lab has located a neural mechanism in obese mice that helps explain leptin resistance. In this Q&A, he discusses how dysregulated leptin leads us to put on pounds, new treatments for obesity, and more:
Wenbin Mei of Sohail Tavazoie's lab is a winner of the 2025 Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award! He is recognized for work showing that a commonly inherited mutation governs breast cancer metastasis and influences survival. The award, given by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, is considered among the most prestigious prizes for graduate students in the biosciences. Congratulations!
In honor of hashtag#WorldHearingDay, watch (and listen!) to this fabulous 2020 TED Talk from Rockefeller's Jim Hudspeth: The Beautiful, Mysterious Science of How you Hear.
Rockefeller's Jean-Laurent Casanova has been named the 2025 recipient of the Novo Nordisk Prize! He is recognized for his discoveries of mutations that predispose people to severe outcomes from a variety of infectious disease. Congratulations, Jean-Laurent!
The origins of human language remain mysterious. Are we the only animals truly capable of complex speech? Are Homo sapiens the only hominids who could give detailed directions to a far-off freshwater source or describe the nuanced purples and reds of a dramatic sunset? Researchers from The Rockefeller University have found intriguing evidence that a protein variant found only in humans may have helped shape the emergence of spoken language. In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers in the lab of Rockefeller researcher Robert B. Darnell discovered that when they put this exclusively human variant of NOVA1—an RNA-binding protein in the brain known to be crucial to neural development—into mice, it altered their vocalizations as they called to each other. “This gene is part of a sweeping evolutionary change in early modern humans and hints at potential ancient origins of spoken language,” says Darnell, who studied NOVA1 for three decades. "NOVA1 may be a bona fide human ‘language gene,’ though certainly it’s only one of many human-specific genetic changes."
Whether humans are singular among animals in their use of complex language remains a hot topic among scientists in many fields. Rockefeller University researchers Robert B. Darnell and Erich D. Jarvis recently made a discovery that could change the terms of that debate: The alteration of a single amino acid in a single gene may have contributed to the evolution of the more complex vocal communication found in human spoken language. When placed in mice, this variant, dubbed I197V, altered how the animals vocalized between themselves. Their "speech" had more complex components than that of wild-type mice. In this Q&A with Darnell and Jarvis, the scientists share what makes NOVA1 different from other language-associated genes and the possible clinical implications of their discovery.
Stefan Hell, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2014 for his pioneering work on super-resolution microscopy, was on campus last week and paid a visit to Rockefeller's Bio-Imaging Resource Center (BIRC) and its director, Alison North. The BIRC houses a very special microscope, made possible by Stefan's discoveries—it's the Abberior Facility Line STED system, the first of this model in the world. And it came with a handwritten dedication to Rockefeller and Alison from Stefan himself. Here is Stefan, Alison, and the BIRC team!
Rockefeller's Maria Canesso talks to The Scientist about her recent work with the Mucida and Victora labs on how cell-cell interactions help drive tolerogenic or inflammatory responses to the maelstrom of antigens passing through the gut: “It’s a simple but intriguing question: How do we survive eating? How do we not create an inflammatory response to food?”
