Dedication of Weill Hall: Faculty Panelists
Carlos Bustamante
Carlos D. Bustamante is a statistical population geneticist interested in human and primate evolution, impacts of domestication on genetic architecture, and medical applications of genomics technology. He received his PhD from Harvard University and was a postdoctoral fellow at Oxford under the aegis of a Marshall Sherfield Fellowship. Since 2002, he has been on the faculty at Cornell University, where he teaches statistics, statistical genetics, and bioinformatics.
His group has most recently worked on comparing the human, macaque, and chimpanzee genomes; quantifying the strength of selection against new mutations in the human genome; and identifying rapidly evolving genes in different human populations. His current research focuses on identifying genes contributing to differences among domestic dog breeds; on developing genomic resources for using the macaque as a non-human primate model for mapping genes involved in human diseases; and on a large collaborative project to map genes of agronomic importance in domesticated Asian rice. Recently his lab has worked on analyzing patterns of genetic variation among 7,000 people around the world to understand how geographic distance and human migration patterns have affected genetic similarities and differences among humans.
Scott Emr
Scott D. Emr is the Frank H.T. Rhodes class of ’56 Director of the Joan and Sanford I. Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology. His research group was the first to demonstrate an essential role for phosphoinositide lipid kinases and phosphatases in the regulation of membrane trafficking pathways. These essential enzymes regulate cell growth, shape, and size. Dr. Emr’s lab recently identified a new set of genes that function in the regulation of cell signaling pathways and are now being pursued as drug targets for the treatment of AIDS.
Dr. Emr counts among his honors a Searle Scholars Award and a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award. He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Academy of Microbiology. He serves on the editorial boards of numerous journals, is a member of the Council for the American Society for Cell Biology, and serves on the advisory board for the Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences, supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Prior to joining the Cornell faculty, Dr. Emr held positions at the University of California, Berkeley; the California Institute of Technology; and the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine.
Claudia Fischbach-Teschl
Claudia Fischbach-Teschl’s research aims at elucidating microenvironmental events that currently impair the prognosis of cancer patients and developing new drug delivery systems for more effective treatment. Her research is focused on three areas: the capability of different stroma compartments to participate in the pathogenesis of cancer; tumor cell metastasis to bone as a function of differential structural and biomechanical characteristics; and the development of microenvironment-inspired drug delivery systems for combination therapy for cancer. This research will contribute to a better understanding of the complex signaling networks underlying tumor malignancy and culminate in the identification of therapeutic targets and drug delivery technologies that may fundamentally change the way tumors are treated.
Prior to joining the Cornell faculty, Dr. Fischbach-Teschl conducted postdoctoral work at Harvard University in the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences. She received her PhD in pharmaceutical technology from the University of Regensburg, Germany, and holds an MS in pharmacy from Ludwigs-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany.
Stephen Kresovich
Stephen Kresovich, vice provost for life sciences and professor in the departments of Plant Breeding and Genetics and Plant Biology, is responsible for providing university-wide leadership for the New Life Sciences Initiative, the largest academic undertaking in the university’s history. He coordinates strategic planning for faculty hiring, planning for new buildings, and developing shared core research facilities.
Dr. Kresovich’s internationally recognized research focuses on conservation genetics and the improvement of crop plants, including sorghum, maize, and pearl millet. Dr. Kresovich previously served as the director of the Institute for Genomic Diversity, the director of the Institute for Biotechnology and Life Sciences Technologies, and the associate vice provost for life sciences at Cornell. Prior to joining the faculty, Dr. Kresovich served for eleven years as laboratory director at two U.S. National Genetic Resources Program gene banks in New York and in Georgia. Dr. Kresovich is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Crop Science Society of America. Since 1997, he has served as the U.S. Agency for International Development’s scientific liaison officer for genetic resources conservation to the U.N.-supported International Agricultural Research Centers. In 2001, Dr. Kresovich was appointed to the Executive Committee of the New York State Biodiversity Research Institute. In 2005, he chaired a national Experiment Station Committee on Organizational Policy (ESCOP) committee responsible for reviewing joint federal-state activities for managing crop genetic resources and providing a vision for future collaborations.
Anne Moscona
Anne Moscona is a professor of pediatrics and of microbiology and immunology, and vice chair for research of pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medical Center. Her studies on pediatric infectious diseases and basic virology bridge clinical pediatrics and basic pathogenesis research. Dr. Moscona’s laboratory focuses on the human parainfluenza viruses, which cause croup, pneumonia, and infant bronchiolitis and contribute significantly to disease and death in infants and young children. The laboratory is best known for discovering how the viral receptor-binding protein activates the viral fusion process during infection, a discovery that has helped identify potential means of interfering with the virus. For related viruses that have recently begun causing serious infections in humans—the Hendra and Nipah viruses—she and her colleagues are working to dissect how the receptor-binding protein triggers the fusion and entry process, and to develop new strategies to interfere with fusion and prevent entry of these pathogens into cells.
Dr. Moscona has trained faculty, fellows, medical students, and graduate students in pediatric infectious diseases and in virology research. She serves on several national grant review committees, including those at the National Institutes of Health, the March of Dimes, and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, and has been elected to the Society for Pediatric Research and the American Society of Clinical Investigation. Since joining Weill Cornell three years ago, she has widened her collaborative research to include broadly interdisciplinary projects.
