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Leaders from Northwell’s Cancer Institute and its Center for Genomic Medicine celebrate the opening of the Molecular Diagnostic Laboratory. From left to right, Joseph Castagnaro, Jeff Boyd, Dwayne Breining, Richard Barakat, Naima Loayza, Anna Razumova, Angelo Carbone, Rita Mercieca and Kathryn Cashin. Photo courtesy of Northwell Health

By Daniel Dunaief

Northwell Health Cancer Institute and its Center for Genomic Medicine opened a Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory, which will reduce the cost of testing and shorten the time to get test results for cancer tests.

At a cost of $3.2 million, the 2,800 square foot facility will use next generation sequencing to provide tumor and patient genomic profiling and to assist in testing for biomarkers and determining the choice of cancer therapy.

The MDL, which is using the space Northwell Health Labs owned, will offer an array of tests in a phased approach. It is starting with a set of single gene tests to inform precision therapies for lung, melanoma, pancreatic, and colorectal cancer, which can be conducted in 24 to 72 hours.

“We like to get cancer therapy started as soon as possible for patients with metastatic disease,” said Jeff Boyd, vice president and chief scientific officer and director of the Northwell Health Cancer Institute’s Center for Genomic Medicine. When Northwell sent out similar tests to for-profit centers, the results, depending on the test, could take weeks.

The MDL is performing these tests on patients with advanced stage disease and/or recurrent diseases, which increases the need to generate results quickly.

“That makes a huge difference for the ordering oncologist and, most especially and importantly to the patient,” said Boyd. “The sooner they can get on precision therapeutics to treat the disease, the better. Outcomes will reflect wait time until you get therapy.”

Northwell treats more New York residents for cancer than any provider in the state, according to the Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System, inpatient and ambulatory surgery data. 

The center, which is located in Lake Success, started conducting tests several weeks ago.

The lab is using high-end DNA sequencing to extract and define the genomic details of each tumor. Each patient tumor is different, which affects decisions about the best possible treatment.

“When the diagnosis isn’t totally clear to the pathology team, the genetics of the cancer will often inform the diagnosis,” said Boyd. Some patients with the same type of tumor will respond differently to radiation.

The lab is offering four single-gene tests: EGF for non-small cell lung cancer, BRAF for melanoma, KRAS for colorectal, pancreatic and lung cancers, and BRAF/NRAS for melanoma.The MDL plans to offer a 161-gene NGS panel for solid malignancies, a 45-gene NGS panel for hematologic malignancies, and MSI-H, a genetic test that reveals whether tumors will respond to immunotherapy.

Long road

Northwell recruited Boyd to start a molecular diagnostic lab four years ago. He started working in February of 2020, a month before the pandemic caused local, state, national and worldwide disruption.

While he has other responsibilities, Boyd suggested that his “primary reason” for joining Northwell was to “create and direct a Center for Genomic Medicine.”

Northwell conducted extensive physical renovation of the core lab facility that houses the MDL. Northwell also hired six people for the MDL, which includes a lab director, a lab manager, two certified lab technicians, a director of bioinformatics and an LIMS administrator.

In addition, New York State Department of Health had to certify the tests. Northwell is working through certification for additional tests.

Patients don’t need to go to the Lake Success facility to benefit from the services offered by the lab.The cost to patients for these tests is less than it would be for a for profit lab, Boyd said.

“We are a non profit and all we’re looking for is the sustainability of the lab infrastructure,” he added.

At this point, the lab isn’t conducting any germ line testing to determine if there are genetic predispositions to various cancers.

“That might be one of those tests we role out in the future,” Boyd said.

For Boyd, who earned a PhD in toxicology and biochemistry from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, the work is particularly rewarding.

To see his job “impact care tomorrow” based on a particular genetic alteration, “it doesn’t get much better than that for an individual with my background and profession,” he said.

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Camila dos Santos Photo courtesy of CSHL

By Daniel Dunaief

People often think of and study systems or organs in the body as discrete units. 

In a healthy human body, however, these organs and systems work together, sometimes producing signals that affect other areas.

Recently, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Associate Professor Camila dos Santos and graduate students Samantha Henry and Steven Lewis, along with former postdoctoral researcher Samantha Cyrill, published a study in the journal Nature Communications that showed a link in a mouse model between persistent bacterial urinary tract infections and changes in breast tissue.

The study provides information about how a response in one area of the body could affect another far from an infection and could provide women with the kind of information that could inform the way they monitor their health.

To be sure, dos Santos and her graduate students didn’t study the processes in humans, which could be different than they are in mice.

Indeed, they are in the process of establishing clinical studies to check if UTIs in women drive breast alterations.

The body’s response

In this research, the scientists demonstrated that an unresolved urinary tract infection itself wasn’t causing changes in breast tissue, but that the body’s reaction to the presence of the bacteria triggered these changes.

By treating the urinary tract infections, Henry and Lewis showed that breast cells returned to their normal state.

Further, when they didn’t treat the UTI but blocked the molecule TIMP1, which causes collagen deposits and milk duct enlargements, the breast cells returned to their normal state.

The TIMP1 role is “probably the main eureka moment,” said Lewis, who is an MD/ PhD student at Stony Brook University. “It explains how an infection in the bladder can change a faraway tissue.”

Lewis suggested that collagen, among other factors, changes the density of breast tissue. When women get a mammography, doctors are looking for changes in the density of their breasts.

Taking a step back from the link, these graduate students and dos Santos considered whether changes in the breast tissue during an infection could provide an evolutionary benefit.

“From an evolutionary standpoint, there should be some adaptive advantage,” suggested Henry, who is earning her PhD in genetics at Stony Brook University and will defend her thesis in July. Speculating on what this might be, she suggested the mammary gland might change in response to an infection to protect milk production during lactation, enabling a mother to feed her young.

Epidemiological studies

A link between persistent UTIs and breast cancer could show up in epidemiological studies.

Dos Santos and collaborators are exploring such questions in the context of European data and are working with US collaborators to collect this information.

In addition, dos Santos believes women should consider how other ongoing threats to their overall health impact their bodies. Women with clinical depression, for example, have worse prognoses in terms of disease. Humans have health threats beyond UTIs that could predispose them to developing cancer, dos Santos said.

Division of labor

Henry and Lewis took over a study that Samantha Cyrill, the third co-first author on the paper started. When Cyrill finished her postdoctoral work, Henry and Lewis “put on their capes and said, ‘We are going to take this to the end line.’ They are incredible people,” said dos Santos.

They each contributed to the considerable work involved.

Henry primarily analyzed the single cell RNA sequencing data, specifically identifying changes in the epithelial compartment. Gina Jones, a visiting CSHL undergraduate research program student, and Lewis also contributed to this.

Henry also participated in TIMP1 neutralizing antibody treatment in post-lactation involution mice, contributing to tissue collection and staining.

Working with Cyrill and Henry, Lewis contributed to the mouse work, including experiments like neutralizing TIMP1 and CSF3. Lewis also worked with Cyrill on the UTI infections in the animals and with Henry in processing tissues for single cell RNA sequencing and assisted Henry on the sequencing analysis.

While this result is compelling and offers an opportunity to study how an infection in an area of the body can trigger changes in another, dos Santos recognized the inherent risk in a new project and direction that could have either been disconnected or a been a dead end.

“It was an incredible risk,” said dos Santos. She was rejected from at least four different funding opportunities because the research is “so out there,” she said. She tapped into foundations and to CSHL for support.

Back stories

A resident of Brooklyn, Lewis was born in Queens and raised in Scarsdale. He joined the dos Santos lab in March of 2021. One of the appeals of the dos Santos lab was that he wanted to understand how life history events drive disease, especially breast cancer.

A big Mets fan, Lewis, whose current favorite payer is Pete Alonso, is planning to run his third marathon this fall.

Lewis is dating Sofia Manfredi, who writes for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and accepted an Emmy award on behalf of the staff.

Lewis considers himself Manfredi’s “biggest cheerleader,” while he appreciates how well she listens to him and asks important questions about his work.

As for Henry, she grew up in Greenport. She joined the lab in May of 2020 and is planning to defend her thesis in July.

Her father Joseph Henry owns JR Home Improvements and her mother Christine Thompson worked as a waitress and a bartender in various restaurants.

Henry is married to Owen Roberts, who is a civil engineer and works in the Empire State Building for HNTB as a civil engineer, where he focuses on traffic.

Henry hopes to live in Boston after she graduates. She’s adopted the rooting interests of her husband, who is a fan of Beantown teams, and will support the Bruins and the Celtics. A lifelong Yankees fan, however, Henry, who watched the Bronx Bombers with her father growing up, draws the line at supporting the “Sawx.”

As for the work, Henry and Lewis are excited to see what the lab discovers in the next steps.

“I do think this work is extremely informative, defining a relationship between an infection, UTI, and the mammary gland that has not previously been appreciated,” Henry explained.

“This provides information to the public,” said Henry. “I always think it is worth knowing how different events may impact your body.”

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F. William Studier, senior scientist emeritus at Brookhaven National Laboratory, in 2004. (Roger Stoutenburgh/Brookhaven National Laboratory)

Prestigious honor recognizes development of widely used protein- and RNA-production platform

F. William Studier, a senior biophysicist emeritus at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, has won the 2024 Richard N. Merkin Prize in Biomedical Technology [https://merkinprize.org/] for his development in the 1980s of an efficient, scalable method of producing RNA and proteins in the laboratory. His “T7 expression” technology can be used to make large quantities of nearly any RNA or protein and has been for decades, and continues to be, a mainstay of biomedical research and pharmaceutical production. Studier’s approach has been used to produce numerous therapeutics, diagnostics, and vaccines — including the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines credited with extending millions of lives in recent years [see: https://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=218806].

“F. William Studier’s brilliant work on the T7 system transformed biomedicine, saving millions of lives globally and improving the chances for further research that will change healthcare delivery,” said Dr. Richard Merkin, CEO and founder of Heritage Provider Network, one of the country’s largest physician-owned integrated health care systems. “His work exemplifies why I created this prize initiative that honors and showcases amazing innovators like Bill. I’m honored to be celebrating his remarkable achievements.”

The Merkin Prize, inaugurated in 2023, recognizes novel technologies that have improved human health. It carries a $400,000 cash award and is administered by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, one of the world’s leading biomedical research institutes. All nominations for the 2024 Merkin Prize were evaluated by a selection committee composed of nine scientific leaders from academia and industry in the U.S. and Europe. Studier will be honored in a prize ceremony held on Sept. 17, 2024.

“The T7 system has been influential in biomedicine and has had important clinical implications for many years, but Bill Studier’s contribution to the field has really not been as celebrated as it ought to be,” said Harold Varmus, chair of the Merkin Prize selection committee. Varmus is also the Lewis Thomas University Professor at Weill Cornell Medicine, a senior associate at the New York Genome Center, and a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the origins of cancer.

“Bill Studier’s development of T7 phage RNA polymerase for use in preparing RNA templates for multiple uses in research labs worldwide has been a truly revolutionary technical advance for the entire field of molecular biology,” said Joan Steitz, the Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University.

“Today, virtually every protein you want to produce in bacteria is made with a T7 system,” said Venki Ramakrishnan of the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, and a winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. “There’s not a single molecular biology or biochemistry lab I know that doesn’t use T7.”

“This award is a great honor for Bill Studier, recognizing the significance of the research and technology he pioneered. It reinforces how basic research — asking fundamental questions about the way the world and everything in it works — can result in important and unexpected advances that continue to have impact even decades after the initial discoveries,” said Brookhaven National Laboratory Director JoAnne Hewett. “It is fabulous to see Bill recognized for his lifetime of work and the critical role it has played in biotechnology and medicine.”

Studier’s T7 expression system uses the T7 promoter to “turn on” a gene of interest and the T7 RNA polymerase to transcribe that gene into messenger RNA (mRNA) so that E. coli ribosomes can use the RNA-encoded information to synthesize the desired protein. The system can also be used to make desired mRNAs as, for example, was done to make the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. (Tiffany Bowman/Brookhaven National Laboratory)



Driven by basic biology

Studier grew up in Iowa and became fascinated with biophysics while an undergraduate at Yale University. Then, during graduate school at the California Institute of Technology in the early 1960s, he was introduced to bacteriophage T7, a virus that infects Escherichia coli bacteria. He wondered how T7 could so effectively and quickly take over E. coli, rapidly turning the bacterial cells into factories to produce more copies of itself. That question launched a career focused on the basic biology of T7.

“I’ve always been interested in solving problems,” Studier told Brookhaven National Laboratory in a 2011 profile [https://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=22241]. “The motivation for my research is not commercial application. My interest is in basic research.”

When he joined Brookhaven Lab in 1964, Studier focused on sequencing the genes of the T7 bacteriophage and understanding the function of each of its corresponding proteins during infection of E. coli. By 1984, he and Brookhaven colleague John Dunn successfully identified and cloned the protein within T7 that was responsible for rapidly copying T7 DNA into many corresponding strands of RNA [see: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.81.7.2035]. RNA is the molecule that instructs cells which amino acids to link up to build a particular protein — a critical step in protein synthesis and therefore the bacteriophage’s ability to infect E. coli.

Studier realized that the protein, called the T7 RNA polymerase, might be able to quickly and efficiently produce RNA from not only T7 DNA but also from the genes of any organism. If a gene was tagged with a special DNA sequence, known as the T7 promoter, then the T7 RNA polymerase would latch on and begin copying it. In 1986, Studier described this system in the Journal of Molecular Biology [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3537305/].

“His work really illustrates that sometimes a remarkable technology can emerge not only from people trying to build technologies but from someone who is trying to use basic science to understand a fascinating biological phenomenon,” Varmus said.

Speeding science

Before Studier’s development of the T7 system, scientists who wanted to produce RNA or proteins generally inserted the genes into the natural E. coli genome and let the E. coli polymerase produce the corresponding RNA at the same time as the bacteria produced its own RNA and proteins. But the E. coli machinery was relatively slow, and scientists often ran into problems with the bacteria turning off their DNA-reading programs. T7 polymerase overcame both these problems: It was far faster, and E. coli had no built-in way to shut it off.

Within a few years, biologists had rapidly switched from their older methods to the T7 system for producing both RNA and proteins. When proteins are the desired end result, the E. coli molecular machinery for translating mRNA into proteins is used after the T7 system makes the RNA.

Studier continued studying the T7 polymerase and promoter, fine-tuning the system for years and publishing new improved versions as recently as 2018.

As of 2020, the T7 technology had been cited in more than 220,000 published studies, with 12,000 new studies using the technology published each year. There are more than 100 different versions of the T7 technology available commercially and 12 patents in Studier’s name related to the system.

Making medicine

The T7 technology has also had immediate impacts in industry, with more than 900 biotech and pharmaceutical companies licensing it to produce therapeutics and vaccines.

In 2020, scientists used the T7 platform to produce enough mRNA for COVID-19 vaccines to vaccinate millions of people in the U.S. and around the world. With the T7 promoter placed next to the gene for the COVID-19 spike protein, the T7 polymerase could generate many kilograms of mRNA — the active molecule in the vaccines — at a time.

“I think it’s an incredible testament to this technology that, decades after its development, it’s still the go-to method for RNA and protein production,” said John Shanklin, a distinguished biochemist and chair of the Biology Department at Brookhaven National Laboratory, who considered Studier a mentor for many years.

Those who know Studier say the Merkin Prize is well-deserved; Studier changed the course of biomedicine while working quietly on basic science questions that interested him.

“Almost no one has heard of Bill Studier because he is a quiet, modest guy who had a small lab,” said Ramakrishnan, who worked with Studier at Brookhaven in the 1980s. “But he is an absolutely fantastic role model of what a scientist should be like.”

“He has flown under the radar and hasn’t been recognized for his accomplishments very much,” Shanklin agreed. “This is a well-deserved honor.”

Studier was also committed to guaranteeing access to his technology. When Brookhaven was in the process of licensing and commercializing the T7 system shortly after its development, Studier ensured that it remained free for academic labs while charging commercial licensing fees to companies.

F. William Studier earned a bachelor’s degree in biophysics from Yale in 1958, followed by a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1963. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Biochemistry at Stanford University School of Medicine, and then he joined Brookhaven Lab’s Biology Department in 1964 as an assistant biophysicist. Over the years, Studier rose through the department’s ranks, receiving tenure in 1971 and becoming a tenured senior biophysicist in 1974.

He served as chair of the Biology Department from 1990 to 1999 and then returned to research. He also served as an adjunct professor of biochemistry at Stony Brook University. His achievements have been recognized by election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1990, the National Academy of Sciences in 1992, and as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2007. He retired from the Lab in 2015 and was named senior scientist emeritus. In 2018, he was elected as a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. He holds 15 patents of which nine have been licensed and commercialized, including those on the T7 system.

Studier’s research at Brookhaven Lab was supported by the DOE Office of Science.


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Gabrielle Pouchelon with technician Sam Liebman. Photo by Constance Brukin/CSHL

By Daniel Dunaief

Gabrielle Pouchelon doesn’t need to answer the age-old debate about heredity vs. environment. When it comes to the development of the brain, she’s studying the response both to sensory cues and genetics.

Gabrielle Pouchelon.
Photo courtesy of CSHL

An Assistant Professor who joined Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in March of 2022, Pouchelon studies the interplay between sensory and neuromodulatory inputs and genetic programs in circuit maturation. She also studies other neuromodulatory inputs, usually associated with states of adulthood, which could control development.

A combination of genetics and environment shapes the way neurons connect in a healthy brain. In people who develop non-neurotypical behaviors, through autism, schizophrenia or other conditions, the development of neurological connections and architecture is likely different.

Researchers have associated genes of susceptibility with schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorders. Scientists believe environmental cues provide the brain with activity that interact with these genetic components.

“We are trying to understand whether we can [intervene] earlier that can have different outcomes at later times,” said Pouchelon. “We are studying ways to intervene with these transient processes and examine whether dysfunctions associated with the disorders are improved.”

During critical periods of development, the brain has a high level of plasticity, where various inputs can alter neurons and their connections. This not only involves building connections, but sometimes breaking them down and rebuilding other ones. As people age, that plasticity decreases, which is why children learn faster than adults in areas such as the acquisition and development of language skills.

While the timing of critical periods is less well-defined in humans and language is a complex function, the ability to learn new languages at a young age reflects the high plasticity of the brain.

Scientists are studying language processes, which are specific to humans, with functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Pouchelon, who isn’t studying language skills, hopes that understanding the architecture of developing brains and how they respond to sensory and neuromodulatory cues could shed light on the studies performed in humans. Since behavioral therapy and pharmaceutical treatments can help children with autism, she believes understanding how external cues affect genetic elements could uncover drug targets to alleviate symptoms of neurodevelopmental disorders at an early age.

Neurons & the environment

From left, technician Sam Liebman, Gabrielle Pouchelon and postdoctoral researcher Dimitri Dumontier. Photo courtesy of Gabrielle Pouchelon

In her lab, which currently includes three researchers but she expects to double within a month, Pouchelon uses sophisticated tools to target not only the effect of the environment, but also to look at the specific neurons that transmit information.

She is trying to “understand at a very precise level what a sensory input means and what are the neurons that integrate that sensory input.”

Sam Liebman, who became a technician in Pouchelon’s lab two years ago after graduating from the University of Vermont, appreciates the work they’re doing and her mentorship.

The lab is “unique and special” because he has that “close relationship” in what is now a smaller lab with Pouchelon, Liebman said.

Growing up in Huntington, Liebman, who hopes to go to graduate school in the fall of 2025, came to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory for field trips in middle school and high school.

“I idolized this place and this campus,” said Liebman.

Pouchelon has asked for Liebman’s opinion on potential candidates to join the lab, even summer interns.

Fragile X Syndrome

Most of the work Pouchelon conducts is done on animal models. She is mainly studying animals with a mutation linked to Fragile X Syndrome. 

In Fragile X Syndrome, which can affect boys and girls, children can have developmental delays, learning disabilities and social and behavioral problems. Boys, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, typically have some degree of intellectual disability, while girls can have normal intelligence or some degree of intellectual disability.

Other models for autism exist, such as genetic mutations in the gene Shank3. “We are trying to utilize these models to apply what we understand of development in brains that are healthy and compare them” to the mutated models, Pouchelon explained.

While clinical trials are exploring receptors as drug targets for Fragile X Syndrome, she hopes to find new ones that are selective in early stages of the disease to modify their use depending on the stages of development.

An annoying nerd

Born and raised in Paris, France to a family that showed considerably more artistic talent than she, Pouchelon struggled with games she and her sisters played when they listened to music on the radio and they had to guess the composer.

“I was the one always losing,” said Pouchelon. Her family, including her two older sisters who currently live in France, knew “way more about art and history than I did. I was the nerd scientist.”

When she was young, she was curious and asked a lot of “annoying questions” because she was interested in the “mystery of everything.” In high school, she became interested in the brain.

Pouchelon, who isn’t actively searching for French food but finds the baguettes at the Duck Island Bakery exceptional, lives on the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory campus with her husband Djeckby “DJ” Joseph, a naturalized American citizen originally from Haiti who works in law enforcement at the VA Hospital in Manhattan, and their two-year old son Theo.

Eager to ensure her son benefits from a multicultural identity, Pouchelon speaks to Theo in French. He also attends on campus day care, where he learns English.

As for the decision to come to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Pouchelon, who conducted her PhD research at the University of Geneva in Switzerland and completed her postdoctoral research at New York University and at Harvard Medical School, is thrilled to discuss her work with the talented and collegial staff at the lab.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which is known internationally for meetings and courses, is an “exciting place” where scientists conduct cutting edge research.

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From left, Dmitri Denisov and Anatoly Frenkel (Brookhaven National Laboratory)

       Honor recognizes distinguished contributions to particle physics, chemistry, and materials science

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has recognized two staff scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory with the distinction of Fellow: Deputy Associate Laboratory Director for High Energy Physics Dmitri Denisov and Senior Chemist Anatoly Frenkel. Each year, AAAS bestows this honor on select members whose “efforts on behalf of the advancement of science, or its applications, are scientifically or socially distinguished.” Marking the 150th anniversary of the program, new fellows will be honored at a forum on September 21, 2024, at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.

AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals. The tradition of naming Fellows stretches back to 1874. AAAS Fellows are a distinguished cadre of scientists, engineers, and innovators who have been recognized for their achievements across disciplines ranging from research, teaching, and technology, to administration in academia, industry, and government, to excellence in communicating and interpreting science to the public. Denisov and Frenkel are two of 502 scientists, engineers, and innovators spanning 24 scientific disciplines who are being recognized as members of the 2023 class of AAAS Fellows.

Dmitri Denisov

Denisov has been a long-time leader in particle physics, a field in which experiments often run for decades and a discovery can rewrite an entire science program — and therefore, it can be challenging to plan ahead. Denisov’s strategic guidance and many advisory roles have significantly shaped the future of particle physics in the U.S. and around the world.

He was recognized by AAAS for “distinguished contributions to particle physics through experiments at high energy colliders, and for guidance of the field through numerous management and advisory roles.”

“Research in particle physics advances our understanding of the universe at every level, from its smallest particles like quarks and leptons to its largest objects like galaxies,” Denisov said. “My experience leading institutions and experiments that help uncover these mysteries has been deeply rewarding. In addition to developing the unique facilities, accelerators, detectors, and computational techniques that enable this research, I’ve had the pleasure to collaborate with many international partners — and those team efforts are a critical component of the field’s success. I am flattered to be recognized with AAAS fellowship and looking forward to continuing my contributions to the particle physics community and AAAS.”

Currently overseeing Brookhaven’s world-leading high energy physics program as a deputy associate laboratory director, Denisov is responsible for the Lab’s strategic plan for exploring the universe at its smallest and largest scales. Central to the program is close cooperation with other U.S. laboratories, the international particle physics community, and funding agencies. By balancing those complex collaborations with available funding and international priorities set forth by the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel’s P5 report, Denisov ensures Brookhaven contributes its expertise and cutting-edge capabilities to the world’s most pressing particle physics questions in the most valuable ways.

Under Denisov’s leadership, Brookhaven Lab continues the important role as the U.S. host laboratory for the ATLAS experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s highest energy particle accelerator. The Lab participates in many areas of the ATLAS experiment, such as construction, project management, data storage and distribution, and experiment operations. Brookhaven is leading the U.S. contribution to a major upgrade to the ATLAS detector and construction of superconducting magnets in preparation for the LHC’s high-luminosity upgrade.

Denisov also oversees Brookhaven’s important roles in the upcoming Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) based at DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) and the Sanford Underground Research Facility, from design and construction to operations and analyses. DUNE scientists will search for new subatomic phenomena that could transform our understanding of neutrinos.

Denisov provides crucial support for other international experiments that the Lab’s high energy physics program actively participates in. These include the Belle II experiment at Japan’s SuperKEKB particle collider, for which Brookhaven provides critical computing and software, and the Rubin Observatory that is currently under construction in Chile. Once the Rubin Observatory begins capturing the data from the cosmos, physicists in Brookhaven’s high energy program will take on roles involving operations, scientific analysis, and computing.

At home at Brookhaven, Denisov oversees the Physics Department’s contributions toward a new collaborative effort between DOE and NASA that aims to land and operate a radio telescope on the lunar far side. Called LuSEE-Night, the project marks the first step towards exploring the Dark Ages of the universe, an early era of cosmological history that’s never been observed before. LuSEE-Night’s goal is to access lingering radio waves from the Dark Ages — a period starting about 380,000 years after the Big Bang — by operating in the unique environment of radio silence that the lunar far side offers.

All the while, scientists in the Lab’s high energy physics program under Denisov’s leadership are regularly pioneering new detector technologies, software, and computing solutions that could be used for future particle physics facilities and experiments — and other scientific efforts beyond the field of high energy physics.

“We are thrilled by Dmitri’s distinct recognition by the AAAS Fellowship and look forward to his continuing leadership of Brookhaven’s high energy physics program in the coming years following the 2023 P5 recommendations,” said Haiyan Gao, Brookhaven Lab’s associate laboratory director for nuclear and particle physics.

Before arriving at Brookhaven Lab, Denisov contributed 25 years to the high energy physics program at Fermilab. There, he was most prominently known for serving as the spokesperson for the DZero experiment, which used Fermilab’s Tevatron collider to study the interactions of protons and antiprotons. Denisov led the collaboration of scientists from 24 countries and oversaw publication of over 300 scientific papers written by the collaboration. Strong contributions from Brookhaven’s DZero group were critical for the success of the experiment.

Denisov earned his master’s degree in physics and engineering from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in 1984 and a Ph.D. in particle physics from the Institute for High Energy Physics in Protvino in 1991. Before joining Fermilab in 1994, he was a staff scientist at the Institute for High Energy Physics and the SSC Laboratory.

Anatoly Frenkel

Anatoly Frenkel is a senior chemist in the Structure and Dynamics of Applied Nanomaterials group of Brookhaven Lab’s Chemistry Division and a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering at Stony Brook University (SBU). He is also an affiliated faculty member in SBU’s Department of Chemistry and Institute for Advanced Computational Science.

He was recognized by AAAS for “distinguished contributions to the development and applications of in situ and operando synchrotron methods to solve a wide range of problems in chemistry and materials science.”

“It is an honor to have been nominated and elected to be an AAAS fellow,” Frenkel said. “This recognition reflects on more than two decades of work, going back to the time we first learned how to analyze nanostructures, then properties, and, finally, mechanisms in different types of functional nanomaterials.”

Frenkel’s research focuses on understanding the physicochemical properties of nanocatalysts — materials with features on the scale of billionths of a meter that can speed up or lower the energy requirements of chemical reactions. He’s particularly interested in understanding how materials’ physical structure and other properties relate to their functional performance, the mechanisms of catalytic reactions, and the mechanisms of work in electromechanical materials. He is a long-time user of the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), a DOE Office of Science user facility at Brookhaven Lab that produces bright beams of X-rays and other forms of light that scientists use to learn about material properties.

Over the course of his career, Frenkel has developed new approaches for studying materials while they are operating under real-world conditions — known as in situ/operando research. In this work, he uses synchrotron techniques, such as X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), X-ray imaging, and X-ray diffraction — all at NSLS-II — as well as advanced electron microscopy techniques at Brookhaven Lab’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN), another DOE Office of Science user facility. These studies provide detailed insight into materials’ performance and may guide the design of new materials with improved functionality for a wide range of applications. Frenkel has also advanced the use of machine learning and other forms of artificial intelligence to discover important material properties purely from their experimental X-ray signatures. Recent examples include studies to understand how catalysts change as they operate under harsh conditions and to discover ones that could potentially convert carbon dioxide (CO2) into useful products.

“Anatoly’s work to probe how catalysts convert waste products, such as the greenhouse gas CO2, into useful products is important to our efforts in clean energy research at Brookhaven, and it is well deserving of this award,” said John Gordon, chair of the Chemistry Division at Brookhaven Lab.

“Anatoly has been a valued member of our faculty,” said Dilip Gersappe, Stony Brook University Materials Science and Chemical Engineering department chair. “We are thrilled that his pioneering work in developing multi-modal methods for nanomaterial characterization, and the use of novel approaches to identifying spectroscopic signatures through machine learning, has been recognized by this honor.”

Frenkel earned a master’s degree in physics from St. Petersburg University in Russia in 1987 and his Ph.D. from Tel Aviv University in Israel in 1995. He pursued postdoctoral research at the University of Washington, Seattle, and then joined the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a research scientist from 1996 to 2001. He served on the faculty of Yeshiva University as a Physics Department chair from 2001 to 2016 and was a visiting scientist (sabbatical appointment) at Brookhaven Lab in 2009. He’s been a joint appointee at Brookhaven and Stony Brook University since 2016.

At Brookhaven, Frenkel has served as spokesperson and co-director of the Synchrotron Catalysis Consortium since 2004, and he’s arranged a series of courses on X-ray absorption spectroscopy held at Brookhaven Lab continuously since 2005 and at various institutions around the world. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society (2017) and has held a series of visiting professor fellowships at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.

Brookhaven National Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit science.energy.gov.

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Ellen Pikitch. Photo by Tyler Mooney

By Daniel Dunaief

Five decades after graduating from John Dewey High School in Coney Island, Ellen Pikitch recently received an award from a group founded by one of her high school teachers.

Lou Siegel, one of the founders and Nassau County Director of the New York State Marine Education Association (NYSMEA), helped present the Hugo and Anita Freudenthal Award for contributions to furthering scientists’ understanding of the marine environment to his former student by zoom on April 20th.

“It’s wonderful when you have students that follow the same interests that you’ve had,” said Siegel. “Not only has she done excellent work in the field, but she worked to popularize it and to get it out to the general public.”

Endowed Professor of Ocean Conservation Science in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University, Pikitch, who grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, a short train ride from the New York Aquarium, and who said she knew she wanted to be a marine biologist “from the time I was born,” has tackled marine conservation issues from several perspectives.

Anita Freudenthal and the late Hugo Freudenthal, who died in 2021. Photo courtesy of NYSMEA

Pikitch, Distinguished Professor Christopher Gobler and Associate Professor Bradley Peterson worked to restore Shinnecock Bay by planting filter feeders such as hard clams and oysters and reseeding seagrass beds, which have cleaned the waters and prevented the appearance of brown tides. For at least five years, Shinnecock Bay hasn’t had any brown tides, breaking a decades-long cycle.

Indeed, Mission Blue named Shinnecock Bay, which is home to a range of biodiversity including dolphins, a wide variety of fish and birds and, occasionally, sharks, as the first Hope Spot in the state of New York. Other Hope Spots include global attractions such as The Galapagos Islands, the Sargasso Sea and the Ross Sea in Antarctica.

At the same time, Pikitch has been involved in numerous efforts on a global scale to conserve ocean regions through Marine Protected Areas. Working with a group of 42 scientists, she helped develop a framework to understand, plan, establish, evaluate and monitor marine protected areas.

Pikitch is following in the footsteps of the Freudenthals for whom the award and recognition is named, as the married couple were involved in a range of local, national and global projects.

Hugo Freudenthal was “the first person to recognize the symbiotic relationship between algae and corals,” said Pikitch. He was also involved in the creation of the first space toilet, designed in the 1970’s for the Skylab, which was America’s first space station and the first crewed research lab in space.

In an amusing presentation called “Turds in Space” at the Experimental Aircraft Association three years ago that is available online at Turds In Space by Hugo D Freudenthal, PhD, Freudenthal explained how he helped design a toilet that would work in zero gravity, which, he said, “was one of the few things on Skylab that worked perfectly.”

The toilet had a soft seat, which was like a saddle, that was lined with holes on the outside and had vectored air coming in from the sides, which brought the feces down into a collection device, the late Hugo Freudenthal described in the video.

Anita Freudenthal, meanwhile, was the first female marine biologist in Nassau County. She also taught and did research at C.W. Post.

“Both of them were accomplished,” said Pikitch. “I’m excited and honored to have received [the award].”

Humble origins

The granddaughter of immigrants who didn’t speak English, Pikitch came from humble origins, as her parents had high school educations.

Pikitch volunteered at the New York Aquarium during high school, where her job was to stand in front of the shark tank and talk about sand tiger sharks.

Living near the aquarium, which is on the beach in Coney Island, strengthened her interest in marine biology. During summer in her childhood, Pikitch and her family took day trips near and in the water, which cultivated her love of the ocean.

Despite her passion for marine biology, Pikitch came from limited means. She credits her high school teachers, including Siegel and math teacher David Hankin for directing her to pursue degrees in higher education.

Ongoing work

For five years, Pikitch has been using eDNA to study biodiversity in various aquatic habitats.

With eDNA, scientists take environmental DNA from water samples that contain the genetic material shed from scales, fins, tissues, secretions and oils of the organisms living in the water. The genetic material generally lasts about 12 to 24 hours in shallow, warm water.

Environmental DNA has numerous benefits, including that it doesn’t disrupt the ecosystem by removing or harming individuals and it collects DNA from fish and other aquatic organisms that might otherwise be too small, too large or too quick for a trawling net to capture them.

Hugo & Anita Freudenthal Research Award. Photo courtesy of NYSMEA

Through an eDNA sample, Pikitch was surprised to find DNA from a basking shark, which is the second largest living shark after the whale shark.

She and other scientists saw a picture in a local newspaper of a basking shark soon after the eDNA sample revealed its presence.

To be sure, an eDNA sample, could, theoretically, include DNA from species outside the range of a sampled environment. Pikitch uses multiple survey methods besides eDNA.

Indeed, she plans to submit a few manuscripts that are in the works later this year that will compare the range of biodiversity from eDNA samples with the species collected from trawling.

This fall, she’s planning to use high tech equipment that has never been used together before, deploying an uncrewed surface vehicle (or USV) to collect and analyze samples.

Powered by solar energy, the USV doesn’t emit any greenhouse gases and is self-righting, which means that a hurricane could knock it over and, like a Weebles Wobble, it would adjust back to a vertical position in the water.

Pikitch hopes to collect samples off the waters of the Shinnecock Nation. She is involved in consultations with the Shinnecock Nation and is optimistic about a fall collaboration.

Pikitch hopes the eDNA sensor expedition will provide a proof of concept that will encourage other scientists to bring this technology out to remote areas of the ocean, which could help address questions of where to create and monitor the biodiversity of other marine protected areas.

As for the award, Siegel, who helped found the NYSMEA in the same year Pikitch graduated from high school 50 years ago, understands the excitement of the student-teacher connection from the student side as well. Anita and Hugo Freudenthal were his professors at C.W. Post when he earned a master’s in Marine Science.

“It’s like a family tree,” Siegel explained.

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Amanda Liang with the winning bridge design. Photo by Kevin Coughlin/BNL

Amanda Liang, a ninth grader from Paul J. Gelinas Junior High School in Setauket, won first place at the 45th annual Bridge Building Competition hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory on April 3. 

The competition shows students in grades nine through 12 what it’s like to be an engineer as they attempt to design a strong bridge out of only basswood and glue with a set of challenging specifications in mind. Their structures were put to the test under a crushing machine that slowly added more and more weight from above until the bridges broke or bent more than one inch.

The event is organized by Brookhaven Lab’s Office of Educational Programs (OEP) to advance its mission to cultivate the next generation of STEM professionals.

Julia Pincott won second place for her bridge design. Photo courtesy of John Glenn High School

“I want you to imagine your future selves as professional engineers and you’re contributing something important to society,” Bernadette Uzzi, OEP’s manager for K-12 programs told students at the start of the competition. “Perhaps you’re designing a bridge, and you have to continually refine the structure to adapt to our ever-changing world, or maybe you’re here at Brookhaven involved in constructing our new Electron-Ion Collider, which is a ground-breaking machine that will unravel the mysteries of nature’s strongest force. Regardless of your future career plans, today you are engineering students and you’re part of Brookhaven’s journey.”

Uzzi also reflected on the recent bridge collapse in Baltimore: “I’m reminded why it’s so important to give students real-world, relevant experiential learning experiences like this event.”

This year, students from 14 schools around Long Island submitted 240 bridges — 193 of which met all qualifications for testing such as using a symmetrical design and weighing under 25 grams.

Bridges are ranked based on efficiency scores that are calculated from the load the bridge supports divided by the mass of the bridge — all in grams.

Liang’s design earned the top spot with an efficiency of 3,441.43.

“I looked at a bunch of old national bridges and I took a lot of inspiration from them,” Liang said, adding later, “I was really excited especially because it was my first year. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go. I didn’t expect this.”

Alexander Song and Daniel Liang, both juniors from Ward Melville High School in East Setauket, took second place and third place with efficiencies of 2,536.142 and 2,112.446, respectively.

The top two winners in Brookhaven’s regional competition qualified to compete in the International Bridge Contest on April 27 in New Philadelphia, Ohio.

Competition judges also issued an award for aesthetic bridge design to Julia Pincott, a senior at John Glenn High School in Elwood.

Some of the bridges entered into the competition. Photo from BNL

Throughout the bridge testing day, students had the chance to meet engineers from across the Lab, including longtime contest volunteers and Jordanna Kendrot, a safety engineer at the DOE-Brookhaven Site Office. Kendrot shared how in her own path to becoming a researcher, she found it was important to expand her studies beyond only engineering courses.

“It’s really about broadening your horizons and questioning the norms in engineering that will help us keep moving forward,” Kendrot said.

Amid all the bridge crushing, competition organizers tossed Brookhaven Lab and science trivia questions to students, who had a chance to win Lab merchandise for their correct answers.

Competitors tested their engineering skills in an additional STEM challenge to construct a miniature floating table. Students were also treated to a tour of the National Synchrotron Light Source II, a DOE Office of Science user facility that creates light beams 10 billion times brighter than the sun.

“This year’s bridge contest was a new experience for everyone,” STEM educator and event co-coordinator Theresa Grimaldi said. “It was the first time OEP organized this contest to be during school hours and it was such a pleasure to have the students here for the whole day, getting to know the engineers and touring the site.”

Brookhaven National Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit science.energy.gov.

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Above, the Condor telescope in New Mexico which is a model for a similar telescope Lanzetta will be building this year in Chile as a Fulbright Scholar. Photo courtesy of Condor Team

By Daniel Dunaief

Five years later, Kenneth Lanzetta is bringing a telescope to Chile.

Professor Kenneth Lanzetta, PhD
Photo courtesy SBU

In 2019, Lanzetta, who is a Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Stony Brook University, was planning to install a sophisticated state-of-the-art telescope in Chile that could look deep into the dark night sky for low-surface brightness and point sources. The onset of Covid in early 2020, however, disrupted that plan, as Chile closed its borders, leaving him scrambling to find a new site.

“I looked for an alternative I could drive to,” said Lanzetta, as flying was strongly discouraged.

He settled on the Dark Sky New Mexico observatory near Animas to set up a Condor Array Telescope.

Lanzetta had various manufacturers ship components to the site. At the end of 2020, he, his wife Robin Root, and his daughter Ciara drove across the country.

He had originally intended to spend about two weeks in the state. After many problems and delays, he and his wife stayed for more than four months, until early 2021. Ciara returned to college in London in the middle of January.

Lanzetta and Root moved every two weeks, expecting that they would be able to return to Long Island. Each time, delays in the project extended their stay. They figured they visited almost every airbnb in the area.

“I spent Covid in a very isolated part of New Mexico and I didn’t have to be back in Stony Brook,” Lanzetta said. “I had the ability to teach online.”

A view created by Condor and computer technologies of extremely faint shells of ionized gas surrounding the dwarf nova Z Camelopardalis.
Photo from Kenneth M. Lanzetta

While the New Mexico site worked out better than he could have imagined, producing enough information to leave him “awash in data” as he works to publish his findings, Lanzetta is planning to spend the next academic year in Chile. He will split his time between Concepción, Santiago, San Pedro and Cerro Taco, which is where he will install the new Condor telescope at an altitude of 5,200 meters, or 17,060 feet at Atacama National Park.

Lanzetta will serve as a Fulbright Scholar for the 2024-2025 academic year.

The Fulbright scholarship “recognizes the potential of the ‘Condor Array Telescope’ that is based on a possibly paradigm shifting astronomical telescope technology,” Chang Kee Jung, Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, said in a statement. “Deploying Condor in Atacama, a premier site for telescopes, opens up a greater opportunity for discoveries.”

That altitude and the expected clear skies in the South American nation will give Lanzetta and his colleagues an opportunity to study extremely faint images that would otherwise be more challenging or even impossible to see from other locations. The good weather and dark conditions also help.

Kenneth Lanzetta in the Atacama Desert. Photo by Robin Root.

The park has a road for access and an optical fiber connection, which makes it possible for him to do what they want to do at the site.

The site is at a high enough altitude that Lanzetta will need to breathe bottled oxygen.

The Stony Brook scientist will build as much of the telescope as he can at a lower elevation, ship it to the site and bolt it in place.

The Condor telescope will use refracting optics from several smaller telescopes into the equivalent of one larger telescope that uses newer and faster complementary metal oxide semiconductor sensors.

Most, but not all, of the components of the telescope are off the shelf. The recent development of extremely capable CMOS sensors, which are used in cell phones, back up cameras for cars and in industry, were not available in an inexpensive commercial format as recently as five years ago.

What Lanzetta plans to do in Chile is replicate the successful effort in New Mexico to capture more light signals in space that are beyond the limits of what conventional telescopes can distinguish.

He plans to create a telescope that, when it functions as it should, can operate autonomously, allowing him to control it from anywhere in the world as it transmits data back to his computers at Stony Brook.

New Mexico results

Lanzetta recently returned from an international conference in Aspen, Colorado, where he presented several results.

Condor revealed intergalactic filaments, which might provide glimpses of the cosmic web. He is actively working on this.

Computer simulations of structure formation in the universe has shown how structure came to be from a universe that was initially smooth.

The simulations suggest dark matter is distributed in a hierarchical fashion, with superclusters, clusters and groups of galaxies connected by filamentary structures that resemble a cosmic web.

Lanzetta has been working to see glowing gas of the cosmic web and he and his colleagues believe it is within reach of the current and the new Condor Atacama.

Higher than Chile?

With the increased visibility at the higher altitude site in Chile, researchers recognize that gathering information even further up in the atmosphere increases the likelihood of finding images from faint objects.

At the Aspen conference, scientists discussed the possibility of launching telescopes designed to study the extremely faint universe on balloons, which might be faster and cheaper than attempting to do this from space.

A resident of Smithtown, Lanzetta lives with his wife Root, who is planning to spend the year in Chile with him. Lanzetta’s son Ryan is finishing his PhD in theoretical condensed matter physics at the University of Washington, while his daughter Ciara is finishing her master’s degree in costume design at the University of Glasgow in Scotland.

Growing up in Warminster, Pennsylvania, Lanzetta and his father Anthony used to build things together. When he was 13, Lanzetta had an advanced class radio license. His father helped put together a radio transmitter and receiver and they installed various antennas on the roof.

His father had an undergraduate degree in physics and worked as an engineer. With Ryan’s educational experience, the family has three generations of Lanzettas with degrees in physics.

Lanzetta’s father had a telescope that they used to look at the moon and Saturn. In 1969, when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were walking on the moon, he recalls his father telling him the astronauts were too small to see.

“This is what I was going to do from the time I was conscious,” he said. “It was always the way it was going to be.” 

Indeed, Lanzetta realizes how “lucky I’ve been to be able to spend my entire life” doing this work.

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Joshua Homer. Photo by Constance Burkin

By Daniel Dunaief

Even as some antibiotics and anti cancer treatments help beat back infections and diseases such as cancer, pathogens and diseases can develop resistance that render these treatments less effective.

Researchers at pharmaceutical companies and universities spend considerable time trying to ensure therapies continue to work. Companies make derivatives of existing drugs or they combine drugs to reduce resistance. They also develop new agents to combat drug-resistant tumors.

Using a chemical process that won his mentor K. Barry Sharpless a Nobel Prize, John Moses, a Professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, has deployed a new version of click chemistry to assemble biologically active compounds quickly and effectively, which could be used for further development into potential therapies.

Akin to fastening a seatbelt or assembling LEGO blocks, click chemistry benefits from an efficient system to create reliable end products, with the additional advantage of minimizing waste products or impurities.

Recently, Research Investigator Joshua Homer, who has been in Moses’s lab for over three years, published a paper in Chemical Science in which he created several libraries of over 150 compounds. He screened these for activity in anticancer or antibiotic assays.

The newer click process, called Accelerated SuFEx Click Chemistry, or ASCC, involves “less synthetic steps,” said Homer. ASCC can use functional groups like alcohols, that are naturally found in numerous commercially available compounds, directly. Homer can and has used commercially available alkyl and aryl alcohols as fragments in this application of ASCC.

This approach “allows us to explore chemical space so much faster,” Homer said.

In an email, Moses suggested that the paper “demonstrates that SuFEx chemistry can be a feasible and speedy approach compared to traditional methods.”

To be sure, the products could still be a long way from concept to bedside benefit.

“It’s important to note that while the chemistry itself shows promise, the actual application in drug development is complex and can take many years,” Moses added.

The research contributed to finding compounds that may be promising in treating various conditions and represent initial findings and potential starting points for further development, Homer added.

Specifically, Homer took inspiration from the structure of combrestastatin A4 when developing microtubule targeting agents.

The chemicals he produced had good activity against drug-resistant cancer cell lines that resist other treatment options.

Homer also modified the structure of dapsone, generating a derivative with greater activity against a strain of M. tuberculosis that is otherwise resistant to dapsone. 

“Strains of bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics,” said Homer. Derivatization of antibiotic structures can generate compounds that maintain activity.

Breast cancer

In creating these compounds, Homer bolted on different commercially available fragments and developed potential nano-molar treatments that could be effective against triple-negative breast cancer.

At this point, he has evaluated two lead agents in two dimensional cell culture and against patient-derived organoids. Homer did this work in collaboration with the lab of CSHL Cancer Center director David Tuveson.

Organoids can help gauge the potential response of a patient’s tumor to various treatments.

Homer found that eight of the microtubule targeting agents were more potent than colchicine against HCT-15. This cancer cell line, he explained, is known to have upregulated efflux, which is a major cause of drug resistance in cancer cells.

His compounds maintained a similar potency between two dimensional cell lines and organoids. Often, compounds are less potent in organoids, which makes this a promising discovery.

Making molecules and screening them for function to discover lead candidates is one of the first steps in the drug discovery process, with considerable optimization and regulatory steps necessary to generate a drug for the clinic.

Promising treatments sometimes also cause cellular damage in healthy tissue, which reduces the potential benefit of any new treatment. Effective cancer drugs are selective for cancer cells over normal cells.

At this point, the molecules Homer creates involve a search for function, he said. “Once we identify the reaction, we can remake our molecule to confirm it is our compound that is causing a reaction.”

Click chemistry doesn’t necessarily lead to solutions, but it enables scientists and drug companies to create and test molecules more rapidly and with considerably less financial investment.

Click solutions

Click chemistry has affected the way Homer thinks about problems outside the lab.

“I think more about doing things quickly and how to tackle the issues we face, rather than using brute force in one direction,” he said. “We can go in lots of directions and probe. We should be looking at all sorts of baskets at once to solve the issues we have.”

Originally from Tauranga, New Zealand, Homer enjoys traveling around the country, visiting new cities and interacting with different people. A resident of Huntington, Homer is looking forward to an upcoming visit from his parents Dave and Debbie and his aunt Carol, who are making their first trip to the continental United States.

“One of my favorite things about being a scientist is that I can bring my parents out of their comfort zone,” he said. His parents live on a small lifestyle block with several sheep and chickens.

Moses lauded the contributions Homer has made to the lab, including providing mentorship to other students.

As for click chemistry, Homer appreciates how the reactions create opportunities even for those without advanced backgrounds in chemistry.

Click chemistry creates the opportunity to help non-scientists understand scientific concepts more easily.

“I can give a high school student the reagents and substrates and they can reliably make biologically active anticancer agents or antibiotics,” he said. “That helps connect science and drug discovery with the community.”

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Kenneth Lanzetta. Photo from SBU

The US Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board have selected Stony Brook University Professor Kenneth Lanzetta, PhD, in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, as a Fulbright US Scholar for 2024-2025. Professor Lanzetta will spend the next academic year in Chile, where he will collaborate with the Astronomy Department at the University of Concepción (UdeC) and deploy a new telescope in the Atacama Astronomical Park.

The “Condor Array Telescope Atacama” – or Condor Atacama – is an expanded version of Professor Lanzetta’s “Condor Array Telescope,” which was deployed in New Mexico three years ago and has since detected several galactic and extragalactic phenomena too faint for other telescopes to pick up on. His new, enhanced version will take advantage of the Atacama Desert’s extreme altitude, clear weather conditions, and dark environment, which make it highly suited to astronomical observation. According to Lanzetta, Condor Atacama could potentially become the world’s most sensitive astronomical imaging telescope.

“I am delighted by the selection of Professor Lanzetta as a Fulbright US Scholar for 2024-2025. This recognized the potential of the ‘Condor Array Telescope’ that is based on a possibly paradigm shifting astronomical telescope technology,” said Chang Kee Jung, Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy.  “While almost all modern astronomical research telescopes use reflecting optics and charge-coupled device (CCD) sensors, Condor uses refracting optics, and newer and faster complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) sensors, which allow it to see things that are missed by conventional telescopes. Deploying Condor in Atacama, a premier site for telescopes, opens up a greater opportunity for discoveries. I am looking forward to receiving exciting news that Professor Lanzetta will deliver from Chile.”

UdeC Professor Rodrigo Andrés Reeves Díaz, PhD, a local expert with experience deploying astronomical instrumentation in the Atacama Desert, will provide guidance on the project and serve as Professor Lanzetta’s host at the university. In exchange, Lanzetta will present a series of seminars to Astronomy Department faculty and graduate students, as well as a public seminar on the department’s behalf.

This project looks to fulfill the Fulbright mission of promoting international collaboration by fostering a partnership between Stony Brook and UdeC. Astronomical communities across the US and Chile will benefit from the deployment and operation of Condor Atacama, and the telescope’s unique imaging capabilities are poised to leave a legacy on the field of astronomy at large.

“I am very much looking forward to spending the next academic year in Chile on a Fulbright Scholar award,” said Professor Lanzetta. “Condor Atacama is a very exciting project, and this visit will allow me to work on deploying the telescope to the Atacama Astronomical Park, which is among the very best astronomical sites in the world. And I am especially looking forward to meeting new people and forming new friendships among my new colleagues at the University of Concepción.”

Professor Lanzetta has been part of Stony Brook’s Department of Physics and Astronomy for more than 30 years. Previously, he was a Hubble Fellow in the Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences at the University of California, San Diego. He has a BA in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania and a PhD in Physics from the University of Pittsburgh. He completed his postdoctoral research at the Institute of Astronomy of the University of Cambridge.

Lanzetta is among roughly 800 faculty members, researchers, administrators and established professionals selected for the 2024-2025 Fulbright US Scholar Program. Also offering opportunities abroad for students and recent graduates, Fulbright is the flagship international academic exchange program sponsored by the United States government. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the Fulbright Program, which operates in more than 160 countries annually.

 

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