Harbor Transcript magazine

Winter 2019

CSHL’s DNA Learning Center builds new bridges between unique science education and diverse groups.

Summer 2019

Originally constructed in 1953, and named for CSHL Director Milislav Demerec (1941 to 1960), the newly renovated Demerec Laboratory building reopens this year. With a rich history of groundbreaking discoveries, the building holds great promise for addressing today’s most challenging diseases.

Winter 2018

Larry Norton and Priscilla Chan flank Bruce Stillman at the 13th Double Helix Medals dinner, helping raise $4.5 million. Thank you to emcee Lesley Stahl and chairs: Jamie Nicholls & Fran Biondi, Leonard Lauder, Rita & Arthur Levinson, Terry & Bob Lindsay, Yuri Milner, Eleanor & Howard Morgan, Elaine & Eduardo Saverin, and Danielle & Paul Taubman.

Summer 2018

Dale Chihuly’s “Twisting Dendrites” hangs in the Marks Laboratory building, a hotbed of CSHL neuroscience. It is the artist’s blown-glass impression of the networks of branched extensions of nerve cells that receive inputs from other cells.

Winter 2017

“As biology becomes more molecular, it is becoming more defined,” says CSHL Professor Leemor Joshua-Tor. She has mastered technologies that allow her to use the shape of molecules to figure out what they do and how they work. Joshua-Tor is pictured alongside a cryo-electron microscope, with which she can see atomic-level 3-dimensional images. This is just one example of powerful technology scientists harness to advance biology.

Summer 2017

The clumpy, bulbous appearance of this organoid from the Spector lab reflects the aggressive nature of the breast cancer subtype it was grown from. After 6 days of treatment with antisense technology that knocks down a long non-coding RNA called MaTAR20, the cancer shrank and lost its branched appearance, suggesting loss of metastatic potential.

Winter 2016

Emma Larson, 3, is one of the first kids whose life has been transformed by a drug treatment for spinal muscular atrophy whose origins we trace to basic research at CSHL.

Summer 2016

Junwei Shi of the Vakoc lab points to a binding pocket on the surface of a protein called BRD4 that when blocked causes leukemia cells to die. Shi discovered a way to use the CRISPR gene editing tool to compile a comprehensive catalog of such binding sites, across cancer cell types.

Winter 2015

Ötzi’s arrival at the DNA Learning Center in Cold Spring Harbor village opens a new hands-on science program to 30,000+ middle and high school students in the region who visit each year. Since 1988, the DNA Learning Center has been teaching students, teachers and families about genetics through partnerships with public and private schools, Saturday DNA! sessions for families, and week-long summer camps. Ötzi is just one example of the innovative educational programs and resources available through the DNA Learning Center at various locations across Long Island and in Manhattan as well as online. CSHL’s educational outreach program is a model for science education across the country and around the world, most recently in China.

125th Anniversary—2015

To celebrate CSHL’s 125th Anniversary, join us online and in person for experiences that travel the past, present and future of one of the world’s leading private, not-for profit biological research and education institutions. The front and back covers of this magazine highlight one of these experiences—an interactive digital timeline about the impact of CSHL basic research discoveries on society. Using multimedia, the stories on the pages of this magazine come to life on your digital devices. Visit the campus throughout the year for special events and engage with on Facebook and Twitter! #CSHL125

Summer 2014

A special kind of glass slide, known as a “flowcell,” is where DNA sequencing happens. DNA is loaded into the vein-like channels etched in the slide’s surface. The slide is then inserted into a sequencing machine where genetic information—encoded by the letters A,T,C, and G—is read.

Winter 2013

Alexis Tchaconas, a senior at Columbia University, was one of 27 gifted college students who took part in the Undergraduate Research Program in summer 2013. Her study of autism, performed in the lab of Professor Mike Wigler, was motivated by a family connection to the disorder.

Summer 2013

Charles A. Jencks, Spirals Time – Time Spirals

The 15-foot-high sculpture reminds us, in the sculptor’s words, of DNA’s “many different manifestations” by catching and reflecting light in varied ways. The sculpture is installed, appropriately, between the Watsons’ current residence and Airslie House, the President’s residence.

Winter 2012

A few of CSHL’s 170 postdocs, pictured on the Hillside steps that lead literally to their labs and figuratively to their success in scientific careers.

Summer 2012

Having co-developed a high-throughput, automated microscopy platform called Serial Two-photon (STP) Tomography for imaging whole mouse brains, CSHL Associate Professor Pavel Osten has launched a spin-off company that is applying this technology to drug discovery in neuroscience.