Recognized again this year as the world’s leading biology research institution, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is relentless in leveraging the latest technologies and methodologies to advance our scientific and education programs. This ranking is consistent with our mission to excel in research and education for the benefit of society. In this magazine, you will see how powerful CSHL is in creating knowledge and in disseminating it to a wide range of audiences—within and outside the scientific community.
Today’s technologies allow our scientists to delve deeper into the function of whole organisms, tissues, cells, and molecules of living organisms. These technologies also provide unprecedented ways to harness big data to uncover patterns and trends in organisms across the evolutionary spectrum and in many geographical niches.
One Experiment shows the results of a deep dive into biology using cryo-electron microscopy that allowed Leemor Joshua-Tor to determine the varied structures of the dangerous norovirus. You can read about Adam Siepel, who approaches biology with the tools of physics, mathematics, and computational sciences. Using these quantitative tools, he has provided new insights into human evolution and migration.
Following on the success of bioRxiv, the most prominent preprint server for pre-publishing research in the life sciences, CSHL launched medRxiv, a preprint server focused on sharing the latest in health science. MedRxiv seeks to improve the openness and accessibility of medical research and enhance collaboration among clinicians and scientists.
I am proud to announce a significant expansion of the CSHL DNA Learning Center (DNALC), our premier educational program for middle school, high school, and early college students. Our proven hands-on teaching methods engage students in the latest genetic cell biology technologies and discoveries, preparing them to thrive in this genome age. The latest expansions are occurring at two sites in the New York metro area, one in Brooklyn with the City University of New York and its New York City College of Technology, and the other in Tarrytown with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
CSHL has also launched a partnership with the award-winning magazine Nautilus to bring you and other intellectually curious readers thought-provoking stories that demonstrate the relevance of biological research to our lives.
I hope you appreciate all that CSHL has to share.
— Bruce Stillman
“President’s message”
Harbor Transcript, Volume 39, Issue 2, 2019