Grad School Alumni News | Page 14

Circular RNA Could Enable New Therapies, Discoveries

May 22, 2019

A new technique developed by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators that creates an unusually stable form of RNA may illuminate many cellular processes and enable new kinds of gene therapies. A study describing the technique was published April 8 in Nature Biotechnology.

Short strands of RNA, called RNA aptamers, can be very useful tools for scientists. They can bind to proteins and block or control their activity. They can...

Comic Relief

May 15, 2019

Comic actor Seth Rogen and his wife are open about how Alzheimer’s disease has affected their family: her mother suffers from its early-onset form, and by age 60 she could no longer speak. In 2012, the couple founded Hilarity for Charity, a nonprofit devoted to raising funds for research and engaging millennials in the fight against the disease. And last year, the group partnered with the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-...

Helping Hand

May 8, 2019

Dr. Omar Vandal, Ph.D. ’07, came to Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences determined to make a difference in the world—focusing his studies on tuberculosis, the world’s most deadly infectious disease and one that sickens an estimated half-million people each year in his homeland of Pakistan. He did innovative doctoral research, identifying a key protein that the TB bacterium needs to survive within the host cell—information that may help scientists develop better drugs. But...