Research Opportunities

The BRSS program is centered around an intensive laboratory research experience. Students work 20-25 hours per week in a laboratory at Rockefeller University doing research in molecular biology, neurobiology, biochemistry, developmental biology, biophysics, or genetics.

The BRSS coordinators helps match students with appropriate mentors based on their prior experience and their interests. The academic coursework of the BRSS program provides an intellectual framework for each student to place his or her research into a larger context.

Below is a list of the investigators at Rockefeller University who serve as mentors for students in the BRSS program. To learn more about the research in these laboratories, you can visit the lab web page links.

Hudspeth, A. James
Thirty million Americans have significant hearing problems, ranging in severity from modest difficulty with speech comprehension through profound deafness. The majority suffer from sensorineural hearing loss—deterioration of the hair cells in the inner ear. Some 16,000 of these sensory receptors are normally found within each cochlea. Additional hair cells in the vestibular labyrinth underlie our sense of equilibrium. Because they are not mitotically replaced after damage, hair cells are continually lost throughout life as a result of genetic lesions, infections, ototoxic drugs, acoustical trauma and aging. Our research group is interested in understanding the normal hearing process and the causes of hearing deterioration as an initial step toward the prevention or reversal of deafness.

McKinney, John D.
"Following infection, the incubation period of tuberculosis ranges from a few weeks to a lifetime." This remark from a leading epidemiologist encapsulates the chief mystery and challenge of tuberculosis (TB): the ability of the pathogen to persist in the tissues indefinitely in the face of the host-immune response. Although in most cases infection is effectively contained by host immunity, failure to eliminate the "enemy within" means that TB can flare up again if the immune system is weakened. Nearly 2 billion individuals worldwide, including 10 to 15 million in the United States alone, are asymptomatically infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Over the course of a lifetime, 100 to 200 million of these latent infections will reactivate and develop into full-blown TB — an enormous burden of future disease arising from infections that are already established. At present, virtually nothing is being done to reduce this vast and pervasive reservoir of contagion because effective and practicable tools are lacking. In recognition of this unmet need, the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine in a recent report stressed that "the first priority for research is development of an understanding of latent infection."
What are the immune mechanisms that maintain TB latency and block reactivation? Why is infection contained but not eradicated? What is the physiologic state of persistent mycobacteria? What are the mechanisms that defend the pathogen against the onslaught of host immunity? We are taking a molecular-genetic approach to address these unanswered questions in TB. Our studies exploit recent technological advances that permit the direct analysis of M. tuberculosis in its natural environment, the mammalian lung. A long-term goal of our research is the development of new and more effective strategies for TB control. With 10 million new cases and 2 to 3 million deaths each year attributed to TB, the need could hardly be greater.

Pfaff, Donald W.
We use molecular techniques to analyze: 1) how the mammalian brain manages specific natural behaviors; and 2) hormonal and genetic influences on generalized brain arousal. Some of this work can be done in nerve cell lines, but it is really necessary to study nerve cells in their normal synaptic context to see how, in the governance of behavior, the brain's special connectivity uses the types of molecular mechanisms seen in other tissues.
Advantageous for molecular studies, hormone effects on nerve cells build upon some of the best examples of eukaryotic transcription control. Steroid sex hormones and stress hormones have massive developmental effects, and in the adult brain they control a variety of natural behaviors. During development, for example, sex hormone actions around the time of birth determine behavioral sex differences, and early stress hormone exposure influences later responses to stress.

Simon, Sanford M.
We study the organization of cells, with a particular emphasis on the mechanisms that control the compartmentalization of cellular components. We study the principles that govern how macromolecules cross membranes or are integrated into membranes, the physiological and pathological consequences of (im)proper compartmentalization, and develop new technologies for studying cellular function.
Some current foci of the lab are the cell biology of tumorigenesis, the assembly of membrane proteins and mechanisms of endo- and exocytosis. While many of our studies are on basic biological processes, we are also pursuing the clinical implications for problems that include malaria, cholera, retinitis pigmentosa, and tumor metastasis.

Vosshall, Leslie
Olfaction, the sense of smell, allows animals to recognize and discriminate thousands of different odorants in the environment. Olfactory cues are important in permitting animals to find food, recognize mates and avoid predators. We use the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, as a model organism to study this crucial sensory modality. Drosophila has a simple olfactory system that is accessible to cellular, molecular, genetic and behavioral analysis. By combining these various approaches we are trying to understand how incoming olfactory cues are processed by the olfactory system to yield stereotyped olfactory-driven behaviors.

Young, Michael W.
We explore the activities of certain genes that control circadian (daily) rhythms in Drosophila. Interactions among these genes, and their proteins, set up a network of molecular oscillations within single cells. These oscillations are autonomously generated in most tissues, and establish overt rhythms in the fly's physiology and behavior. This mechanism is conserved within the animal kingdom. So much so that "clock" genes originally detected in the fruitfly regulate patterns of sleep and other rhythms in humans. We also study neural development, especially action of the neurogenic genes of Drosophila. These determine some of the earliest cell fates in the developing embryo.