The Rockefeller University

🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️ Rockefeller University hit the ground running at the JPMorganChase Corporate Challenge!

Team members from across campus came together for an evening of fitness, camaraderie, and friendly competition in Central Park. Whether chasing a personal best or enjoying a walk with colleagues, participants showed up with energy, enthusiasm, and plenty of team spirit.

Thank you to everyone who laced up their running shoes and represented the Rockefeller community. Events like these are a great reminder that some of our strongest connections are built outside the lab, office, and classroom.

“Rifampicin has historically been part of the backbone of TB treatment,” says Kathryn Eckartt, a former graduate fellow in the Rock lab at Rockefeller. “So as Rif resistance slowly makes this drug unusable, a lot of lives are in danger.”

Decades of reliance on the antibiotic rifampicin have fueled the rise of drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). But as the bacterium mutates to protect itself from the drug, it also creates new weak points that other therapies could exploit.

Now, a new study from Jeremy Rock's lab, in collaboration with Rockefeller's Shixin Liu, shows that the most common rifampicin-resistance mutation slows bacterial RNA polymerase, creating vulnerabilities that future combination therapies may be able to target. The work was partly supported by Rockefeller’s Stavros Niarchos Foundation Institute for Global Infectious Disease Research.

“We’re developing a strategy to stay ahead of drug resistance,” says Rock. “With combination therapies, we could exploit the fact that a mutation that helps the bacteria survive one antibiotic renders it vulnerable to another.”

The Rockefeller University » Researchers discover how to turn one germ's drug resistance into an Achilles' heel A close-up structural model of a common rifampicin-resistance mutation discovered to create vulnerabilities that could be targeted by future combination therapies. (Credit: Liz Campbell)

“Our skin protects us from harm and rejuvenates and repairs itself throughout our lives.”

This Skin Cancer Awareness Month, we’re highlighting the work of Rockefeller scientist Elaine Fuchs and her work on adult stem cells.

Using mammalian skin as the model, Fuchs studies the remarkable properties of these stem cells, including how they know which tasks to perform and when. She explores how stem cells sense and communicate with other cells in their tissue environment. Aiming at advancing therapeutics, she dissects how communication networks malfunction in diseases including cancer.

The accompanying immunofluorescence microscopy image shows SOX9-induced lesions (green) in the epidermis resembling basal cell carcinoma. Abnormal differentiation is shown in red, while blue marks cell nuclei. (Image by courtesy of Yihao Yang from Fuchs Lab)

2026 marks a major milestone for Rockefeller: 125 years ago, the university was founded as the Rockefeller Research Institute. In this in-depth Q&A, President Rick Lifton discusses the enduring power of our guiding mission.

He also reflects on the university’s long history of innovation, why modern medicine would be unthinkable without basic science, and how the next wave of discoveries will shape the future.

The Rockefeller University » 125 years of ‘science for the benefit of humanity’ If you’ve ever received a blood transfusion or watched someone’s life be saved by one; if you or someone you know has been cured of hepatitis C; if you’ve ever questioned why your body keeps you awake late into the night or pulls you out of bed at dawn—then you know The Rockefeller Universit...

Carol St. Angelo: “When I saw a position open up in Rockefeller’s start-up incubator, I thought it was a dream opportunity—a fusion of the best of academia and industry. And after I got to meet with Carlo, I knew that this position would be a unique blend of both worlds.”

Carlo Yuvienco: “I’m the inaugural director here at the Ford Center incubator, and thus far, I’ve supported eight companies that together have raised significant funding. The stakes are high, so Carol, our facilities manager, and I really have to operate as a team.

At the incubator, there isn’t a pre-determined playbook. I work closely with each company to craft a vision for their experience at the university. The companies I’m shepherding are bringing new ideas to the market and that work is intrinsically creative.

Being on this campus offers tremendous opportunities for the biotech startups launching here, and helping our tenants thoughtfully utilize Rockefeller’s infrastructure is just one of the many things Carol is fantastic at.”

CS: “I serve as a liaison between these start-ups and Rockefeller’s core facilities. It’s crucial to streamline the process of interacting with university staff in order to optimize everyone’s time, expertise, and experience.

This has been the capstone of my career. I’ll be retiring at the end of the year, and I cannot think of any better place to conduct science. The way colleagues here treat one another is unlike anywhere I’ve ever worked before. I’ve had enormous fun working with Carlo but also with many others throughout the Rockefeller community.”

The In Situ: Biology & Society series at Rockefeller features expert panelists discussing how biomedical research intersects with policy, investment, and innovation.

“I’m interested in how scientific institutions, government, and private capital can work together to support ambitious biological research and translate discoveries into societal benefit,” says Lauren Anderson Westcott, who researches the maintenance of chromatin structure during cell division in the Risca lab. “Organizing the series has allowed me to create a forum where trainees can engage with leaders across science policy, biotech, and innovation.”

The final event of the series, “Policy for Life Science Innovation,” will be held on May 27.

The Rockefeller University » Lecture series explores the future of science funding and policy Rockefeller musicians find joy in performing, but also community and inspiration in the creative practice.

Rockefeller's Research Assistant Association, which held its third annual poster session earlier this week, is designed to build community and skills among its early-career scientists.

The transition from undergraduate science to professional research can be daunting. New research assistants must learn not only experimental techniques, but also how to think critically about data and how to communicate effectively about their science. RURAA was created to facilitate that process—initially as a community-building group and, more recently, as a forum for professional development.

“RURAA is a terrific support system for research assistants across campus,” says Alexander Talaie, an assistant in Seth Darst’s lab, and member of RURAA’s executive board. “It makes it so much easier to connect with other research assistants and the broader community, and easier to navigate career paths and different application processes.”

The Rockefeller University » How research assistant positions at Rockefeller help launch careers in science Rockefeller musicians find joy in performing, but also community and inspiration in the creative practice.

Winrich Freiwald's lab at Rockefeller has discovered the first evidence of the neural substrates that underlie the basic units of thought. The findings illuminate fundamental properties of neural function and have implications for improving computer-brain interfaces and studying brain disorders.

“The discovery solves a long-standing problem in cognitive neuroscience: Where do symbols—the basic units of thought—come from?” says Freiwald. "It also points to a future—a near future—in which we can understand thinking mechanistically.”

The team located this activity in the ventral premotor cortex, a section of the frontal lobe. The region appears to act as a sort of mediator between the prefrontal cortex, where higher-level thinking such as planning occurs, and the motor cortex, which enables movement.

The Rockefeller University » The neural basis of thought symbols identified for the first time The brain activity that occurs during the act of drawing reveals fundamental neural properties and has implications for the improvement of brain-computer interfaces and the study of brain disorders.

Some of Erich Jarvis’ research at Rockefeller includes mice genetically engineered to produce more complex sounds. He and colleagues are scrutinizing key genes that are active in good vocal learners. Mice with a human version of a protein called NOVA1, for instance, made more complex vocalizations. To be clear, this isn’t a talking mouse situation yet. But research is moving fast.

Learn more in this Science News Magazine piece on AI and other tech advances that could someday enable chats with animals:

AI and tech advances may soon enable talking with animals Advances in decoding animal sounds might someday make animal translators a possibility.

The Vertebrate Genomes Project, led by Rockefeller's Erich Jarvis, is preserving the genetic information of endangered species with help from Google's AI tools. The group aims to sequence the genomes of every species on this planet and create a biological map of life on Earth, which will help researchers understand and protect the genetic diversity of animals.

How we’re helping preserve the genetic information of endangered species with AI Scientists are working to sequence the genome of every known species on Earth.