Faculty and Research GGD

Our faculty members’ research interests span the breadth of genetics, genomics, and developmental biology, using a wide variety of approaches and model systems.  Our faculty members are energetic and well-funded, and Cornell provides an outstanding environment for interdisciplinary and collaborative science by creating a low barrier for interactions between faculty labs and students.

GGD research labs can be loosely associated with the following research themes, but bear in mind that many labs can fit more than one of these themes because of their cross-disciplinary nature.

Research Areas

Students in this area use cutting-edge wet lab and computational methods to understand the functional significance of genome-scale variation and genome organization. For example, some groups in this area are developing sophisticated computational models to understand genome-scale variation of DNA, as well as integrating it with large data sets of phenotypic information. Other groups are identifying and annotating functional elements such as enhancers that impact gene expression.

Research Area Faculty

Daniel Barbash, Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: genetic, molecular evolutionary, and genomic studies of speciation, transposable element regulation, genome stability, and meiotic segregation; Drosophila and human genomic and polymorphism data.

Adam Boyko, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Sciences
Research Interests: canine genomics; evolutionary and population genetics; adaptation; computational biology; genetic architecture of complex traits and diseases; artificial selection; village dogs

Ilana Brito, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Research Interests: Human microbiome; horizontal gene transfer; antibiotic resistance; microbial transmission

Andrew Clark, Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: Population genetics, evolutionary genomics, genetics of complex traits

Benjamin Cosgrove, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Research Interests: cellular systems bioengineering approaches; cell communication and signaling networks regulating muscle stem cell function and tissue regeneration in aging and disease

Charles Danko, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Sciences, Baker Institute for Animal Health
Research Interests: Gene expression, transcriptional regulation, enhancers, promoters, non-coding DNA

Arunika Das, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Sciences
Research Interests: epigenetic mechanisms that preserve genome integrity in the female germline and embryo; how specialized histones are inherited through embryo reprogramming, and how they evade age related decay in eggs using cell biology, and imaging.

Iwijn De Vlaminck, Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Research Interests: development of precision medicine technologies for microbiology and immunology 

Jacquelyn Evans, Assistant Professor, Baker Institute for Animal Health, Biomedical Sciences
Research Interests: the genetic basis of complex diseases in dogs as models for human disease, including cancer and autoimmune disorders.

Andrew Grimson, Associate Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: post-transcriptional gene regulation; experimental and computational genomics; traditional experimental approaches; mechanistic and in vivo studies of post-transcriptional regulation.

Jaehee Kim, Assistant Professor, Computational Biology
Research Interests: computational problems relevant to evolutionary processes and population dynamics; development and application of statistical methods for inference from genetic data.

Jan Lammerding, Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Research Interests: Cellular biomechanics; mechanotransduction; mechanically induced gene expression; nuclear envelope proteins; cell migration and cancer metastasis; muscular dystrophy; heart disease

Sylvia Lee, Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: conserved pathways that regulate aging and age-dependent pathologies; genetic, molecular, cell biological, and genomic approaches; C. elegans and mammalian cells

John Lis, Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: molecular mechanisms by which promoters and enhancers regulate gene expression; state-of-the-art genome-wide assays and analyses; interplay of chromatin architecture and transcription regulation.

Eirene Markenscoff-Papadimitriou, Assistant Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: gene regulatory mechanisms controlling neuronal identity and function during brain development; autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders

Philipp Messer, Assistant Professor, Biological Statistics & Computational Biology
Research Interests: Population genetics; evolutionary genomics; computational biology

Wojtek Pawlowski, Professor, School of Integrative Plant Science: Plant Breeding & Genetics, Plant Biology
Research Interests: Mechanisms and evolution of meiotic recombination; meiosis; evolutionary genomics

Joseph Peters, Professor, Microbiology
Research Interests: Molecular mechanisms of genome stability and evolution; novel transposon targeting mechanisms recognizing DNA replication and RNA-based systems utilizing CRISPR/Cas

Frank Pugh, Professor, Molecular Biology and Genetics
Research Interests: molecular mechanisms of enhancer-promoter communication in humans and yeast; genome-wide ChIP-exo/seq and computational (AI) techniques; from cancer to condensates.

Shu-Bing Qian, James Jamison Professor, Division of Nutritional Sciences
Research Interests: RNA biology, translational regulation, protein quality control

Praveen Sethupathy, Associate Professor, Biomedical Sciences
Research Interests: Role of non-coding RNAs (in particular microRNAs) in genetic, microbial, dietary, and environmental control of health and disease, primarily in diabetes, dyslipidemia, gastrointestinal (GI) disorders including Crohn’s disease, and liver/GI cancers

Ayshwarya Subramanian, Assistant Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: principles governing cellular heterogeneity, crosstalk, and evolution in the context of human tissues and disease.

Tudorita Tumbar, Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: Molecular control of tissue stem cells in the mouse; cell signaling; nuclear structure and function; skin morphogenesis and homeostasis

Haiyuan Yu, Professor, Computational Biology
Research Interests: Network Systems Biology, Deep learning (large language models), Molecular evolution, Statistical genetics, Mass spectrometry, Structural proteomics and protein modeling, functional genomics, protein networks, gene regulation, understanding how noncoding and coding genomic variation in disease and across populations affect gene expression, protein structure and function, and lead to complex traits.

Students in this area use genetic, molecular, cell biological, biochemical and genomic analyses to understand how animals and plants grow from single cell embryos to complex organisms, how those organisms develop and maintain their tissues in the face of environmental insults, and how those organisms age. In addition to its basic interest, developmental biological research has tremendous biomedical relevance for the diagnosis and treatment of congenital birth defects, infertilities, and the development of regenerative medicine strategies.

Research Area Faculty

Carolyn Adler, Assistant Research Professor, Molecular Medicine
Research Interests: planarian flatworms regenerate entire animals by activation of pluripotent stem cells; how stem cells respond to injuries and restore missing organs.

Daniel Barbash, Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: genetic, molecular evolutionary, and genomic studies of speciation, transposable element regulation, genome stability, and meiotic segregation; Drosophila and human genomic and polymorphism data.

Daniel Berry, Assistant Professor, Division of Nutritional Sciences
Research Interests: Our laboratory focuses on understanding adipose tissue biology and systemic metabolism by studying adipose stem cells (ASC). We specifically examine ASC dynamics, the ASC niche, and the role of ASCs in white adipose tissue development, homeostasis, obesogenic expansion and thermogenesis.

Richard Cerione, Goldwin Smith Professor, Chemistry & Chemical Biology, Molecular Medicine
Research Interests: Signal transduction; growth factor receptors

Paula Cohen, Professor, Biomedical Sciences
Research Interests: Molecular regulation of meiotic recombination and crossing over in the mouse    

Benjamin Cosgrove, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Research Interests: cellular systems bioengineering approaches; cell communication and signaling networks regulating muscle stem cell function and tissue regeneration in aging and disease

Arunika Das, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Sciences
Research Interests: epigenetic mechanisms that preserve genome integrity in the female germline and embryo; how specialized histones are inherited through embryo reprogramming; how they evade age related decay in eggs using cell biology, and imaging.

Andrew Grimson, Associate Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: post-transcriptional gene regulation; experimental and computational genomics; traditional experimental approaches; mechanistic and in vivo studies of post-transcriptional regulation.

Chun Han, Associate Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: The Han lab aims to uncover core principles of dendrite morphogenesis and neurodegeneration using Drosophila as an in vivo model system. To achieve this goal, we develop and apply novel genetic and cell biological technologies in Drosophila.

Gunther Hollopeter, Assistant Professor, Molecular Medicine
Research Interests: Use of C. elegans to study the endocytic machinery

Fenghua Hu, Associate Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: Molecular and Cellular mechanism of neurodegeneration; Protein homeostasis; Lysosome biology; Inflammation; Cell signaling

Jongmin Kim, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Sciences
Research Interests: developmental genetics; gene silencing mechanisms governing cell type-specific gene expression using spermatogenesis as a model

Sylvia Lee, Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: conserved pathways that regulate aging and age-dependent pathologies; genetic, molecular, cell biological, and genomic approaches; C. elegans and mammalian cells

David Lin, Associate Professor, Biomedical Sciences
Research Interests: development and degeneration of the nervous system, focusing on the mouse olfactory system

Jun Kelly Liu, Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: Mechanisms of signal transduction (BMP signaling); cell fate diversification and differentiation of pluripotent progenitor cells in the mesoderm 

Eirene Markenscoff-Papadimitriou, Assistant Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: gene regulatory mechanisms controlling neuronal identity and function during brain development; autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders

Robert Reed, Associate Professor, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Research Interests: Evolution of developmental mechanisms; cis-regulatory evolution; functional genomics; animal color patterns; phenotypic plasticity

Adrienne Roeder, Associate Professor, School of Integrative Plant Science: Plant Biology
Research Interests: Plant cell biology, plant development, morphogenesis, growth, and patterning of Arabidopsis flowers and leaves, engineered living materials

Brian Rudd, Associate Professor, Microbiology & Immunology
Research Interests: Development and function of the immune system

Robert Weiss, Professor, Biomedical Sciences
Research Interests: Molecular mechanisms for the maintenance of genomic stability; cellular responses to DNA damage; mouse models of human cancer.

Andrew White, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Sciences
Research Interests: Mechanisms of cancer initiation and progression, stem cells in homeostasis and cancer, cell signaling

Mariana Wolfner, Goldwin Smith Professor and Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow , Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: Functions and evolution of seminal proteins and other important reproductive molecules; Molecular genetics of the egg-to-embryo transition; Drosophila model system and the dengue-vector mosquito. 

 

Students in this area use genetic, molecular, cell biological, biochemical and genomics analyses to understand fundamental processes, such as genome maintenance, nuclear architecture, gene regulation, membrane trafficking, neuroscience. This is an especially exciting era because of the potential to translate basic understanding of fundamental processes into novel effective therapeutics.


Research Area Faculty

Carolyn Adler, Assistant Research Professor, Molecular Medicine
Research Interests: planarian flatworms regenerate entire animals by activation of pluripotent stem cells; how stem cells respond to injuries and restore missing organs.

Eric Alani, Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: Understanding how DNA mismatch repair proteins act in repair and genetic

Daniel Barbash, Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: genetic, molecular evolutionary, and genomic studies of speciation, transposable element regulation, genome stability, and meiotic segregation; Drosophila and human genomic and polymorphism data.

Joeva Barrow, Assistant Professor, Human Ecology: Nutritional Sciences
Research Interests: mitochondrial biology and metabolism & disease; unbiased CRISPR and small molecule screening for novel therapy targets

Ilana Brito, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Research Interests: Human microbiome; horizontal gene transfer; antibiotic resistance; microbial transmission

Andrew Clark, Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: Population genetics, evolutionary genomics, genetics of complex traits

Paula Cohen, Professor, Biomedical Sciences
Research Interests: Molecular regulation of meiotic recombination and crossing over in the mouse    

Brooks Crickard, Assistant Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: In the Crickard lab we use single molecule imaging in combination with genetic approaches to dissect molecular mechanisms of chromosome maintenance and genomic stability.

Charles Danko, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Sciences, Baker Institute for Animal Health
Research Interests: Gene expression, transcriptional regulation, enhancers, promoters, non-coding DNA

Arunika Das, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Sciences
Research Interests: epigenetic mechanisms that preserve genome integrity in the female germline and embryo; how specialized histones are inherited through embryo reprogramming, and how they evade age related decay in eggs using cell biology, and imaging.

Anushka Dongre, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Sciences
Research Interests: We work at the interface of cancer biology and immunology with a focus on understanding how cancer cell-intrinsic and extrinsic factors regulate anti-tumor immunity and resistance to immune checkpoint blockade therapies in the context of breast cancers.

Jacquelyn Evans, Assistant Professor, Baker Institute for Animal Health, Biomedical Sciences
Research Interests: the genetic basis of complex diseases in dogs as models for human disease, including cancer and autoimmune disorders.

Thomas Fox, Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: Mitochondrial genes; nuclear gene regulation

Martin Graef, Assistant Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics 
Research Interests: molecular mechanisms and physiological functions of autophagy; multidisciplinary; genetics, cell biology, and biochemistry in budding yeast and mammalian cell culture.

Andrew Grimson, Associate Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: post-transcriptional gene regulation; experimental and computational genomics; traditional experimental approaches; mechanistic and in vivo studies of post-transcriptional regulation.

Chun Han, Associate Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: The Han lab aims to uncover core principles of dendrite morphogenesis and neurodegeneration using Drosophila as an in vivo model system. To achieve this goal, we develop and apply novel genetic and cell biological technologies in Drosophila.

Maureen Hanson, Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: causes of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome; gene expression, immune cell function, proteomics, metabolomics, and statistical and computational tools.

John Helmann, Professor, Microbiology
Research Interests: Regulation of gene expression; enzymology of RNA polymerase

Gunther Hollopeter, Assistant Professor, Molecular Medicine
Research Interests: Use of C. elegans to study the endocytic machinery

Fenghua Hu, Associate Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: Molecular and Cellular mechanism of neurodegeneration; Protein homeostasis; Lysosome biology; Inflammation; Cell signaling

Lori Huberman, Assistant Professor, School of Integrative Plant Science:  Plant Pathology & Plant Microbe Biology
Research Interests: We use and develop genetic and genomic tools to identify and characterize the genetic pathways regulating how fungi sense and respond to their environment.

Shaoyi Jiang, Robert Langer ’70 Family and Friends Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Research Interests: We study how stem cells (e.g., HSPCs and iPSCs) respond to chemical, biological and mechanical cues under controlled environments; (b)mRNAs/DNAs: We work on mRNA delivery where mRNA stability, immunogenicity and signal amplification are all critical.

Jongmin Kim, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Sciences
Research Interests: developmental genetics; gene silencing mechanisms governing cell type-specific gene expression using spermatogenesis as a model

Alex Kwan, Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Research Interests: Research in the Kwan lab focuses on the neurobiology of depression and psychiatric drug action. We study the molecular, cellular, and circuit mechanisms in the brain using optical imaging, electrophysiological, and genetic methods in mice.

Jan Lammerding, Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Research Interests: Cellular biomechanics; mechanotransduction; mechanically induced gene expression; nuclear envelope proteins; cell migration and cancer metastasis; muscular dystrophy; heart disease

Brian Lazzaro, Professor, Entomology
Research Interests: genetics of insect-pathogen interactions; individual variation in resistance to infection; immune response in overall host physiology; natural selection on the immune system.

Sylvia Lee, Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: conserved pathways that regulate aging and age-dependent pathologies; genetic, molecular, cell biological, and genomic approaches; C. elegans and mammalian cells

David Lin, Associate Professor, Biomedical Sciences
Research Interests: development and degeneration of the nervous system, focusing on the mouse olfactory system

John Lis, Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: molecular mechanisms by which promoters and enhancers regulate gene expression; state-of-the-art genome-wide assays and analyses; interplay of chromatin architecture and transcription regulation.

Jun Kelly Liu, Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: Mechanisms of signal transduction (BMP signaling); cell fate diversification and differentiation of pluripotent progenitor cells in the mesoderm 

Eirene Markenscoff-Papadimitriou, Assistant Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: gene regulatory mechanisms controlling neuronal identity and function during brain development; autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders

Alex Nikitin, Professor of Pathology, Leader of Cornell Stem Cell Program, Biomedical Sciences
Research Interests: aberrations in mechanisms governing stem cell niches leading to cancer in the female reproductive tract, prostate and stomach; cultures, mouse modeling, and genome modifications.

Zeribe Nwosu, Assistant Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: metabolic alterations that drive cancer; tumor microenvironment cells in modulating metabolism; effectively targeting metabolism to improve cancer treatment

Wojtek Pawlowski, Professor, School of Integrative Plant Science: Plant Breeding & Genetics, Plant Biology
Research Interests: Mechanisms and evolution of meiotic recombination; meiosis; evolutionary genomics

Joseph Peters, Professor, Microbiology
Research Interests: Molecular mechanisms of genome stability and evolution; novel transposon targeting mechanisms recognizing DNA replication and RNA-based systems utilizing CRISPR/Cas

Frank Pugh, Professor
Research Interests: molecular mechanisms of enhancer-promoter communication in humans and yeast; genome-wide ChIP-exo/seq and computational (AI) techniques; from cancer to condensates.

Shu-Bing Qian, James Jamison Professor, Division of Nutritional Sciences
Research Interests: RNA biology, translational regulation, protein quality control

Richa Sardana, Assistant Professor, Molecular Medicine
Research Interests: My laboratory studies how membrane protein trafficking and quality control mechanisms surveil the membrane proteome, and how their dysregulation results in human disease.

Praveen Sethupathy, Associate Professor, Biomedical Sciences
Research Interests: Role of non-coding RNAs (in particular microRNAs) in genetic, microbial, dietary, and environmental control of health and disease, primarily in diabetes, dyslipidemia, gastrointestinal (GI) disorders including Crohn’s disease, and liver/GI cancers

Carolyn Sevier, Associate Professor, Molecular Medicine
Research Interests: Research projects focus on how cells sense and respond to reactive oxygen species (ROS) – "oxidative stress". We use a combination of biochemistry, genetic, and cell biology techniques to characterize post-translational redox-signaling events.

Marcus Smolka, Associate Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: We study genome maintenance mechanisms using mass spectrometry technologies, genetics and biochemical approaches in yeast and mammalian systems.

Ayshwarya Subramanian, Assistant Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: principles governing cellular heterogeneity, crosstalk, and evolution in the context of human tissues and disease.

Tudorita Tumbar, Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: Molecular control of tissue stem cells in the mouse; cell signaling; nuclear structure and function; skin morphogenesis and homeostasis

Klaas van Wijk, Professor and Chair, School of Integrative Plant Sciences
Research Interests: Chloroplast proteostasis in plants with emphasis on proteases and discovery of degrons, using a combination of protein biochemistry, mass spectrometry, systems biology and molecular biology

Meng Wang, Assistant Professor, Division of Nutritional Sciences
Research Interests: We aim to dissect how metabolism can cause DNA damage that impacts cancer development and aging, and to design novel treatments that target DNA damage pathways. We use genetic and mass spectrometry approaches in cell lines and animal models.

Robert Weiss, Professor, Biomedical Sciences
Research Interests: Molecular mechanisms for the maintenance of genomic stability; cellular responses to DNA damage; mouse models of human cancer.

Mariana Wolfner, Goldwin Smith Professor and Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow , Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: Functions and evolution of seminal proteins and other important reproductive molecules; Molecular genetics of the egg-to-embryo transition; Drosophila model system and the dengue-vector mosquito. 

Evolutionary processes drive genomic variation in all species. Genome-scale analyses provide tremendous power to study and quantify the different mechanisms that underlie evolution, including adaptation, selective constrains, and molecular process such as mutation and recombination.  Students in this area establish methods for studying these evolutionary processes based on observed patterns of genome variation, and by integrating wet lab, computational, and engineering design approaches in their work.


Research Area Faculty

Eric Alani, Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: Understanding how DNA mismatch repair proteins act in repair and genetic recombination

Daniel Barbash, Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: genetic, molecular evolutionary, and genomic studies of speciation, transposable element regulation, genome stability, and meiotic segregation; Drosophila and human genomic and polymorphism data.

Adam Boyko, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Sciences
Research Interests: canine genomics; evolutionary and population genetics; adaptation; computational biology; genetic architecture of complex traits and diseases; artificial selection; village dogs

Ilana Brito, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Research Interests: Human microbiome; horizontal gene transfer; antibiotic resistance; microbial transmission

Andrew Clark, Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: Population genetics, evolutionary genomics, genetics of complex traits

Charles Danko, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Sciences, Baker Institute for Animal Health
Research Interests: Gene expression, transcriptional regulation, enhancers, promoters, non-coding DNA

Matthew DeLisa, William L. Lewis Professor of Engineering, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering
Research Interests: applied immunology; glycobiology and glycoengineering; protein biogenesis; protein engineering; synthetic biology        

Jaehee Kim, Assistant Professor, Computational Biology
Research Interests: computational problems relevant to evolutionary processes and population dynamics; development and application of statistical methods for inference from genetic data.

Brian Lazzaro, Professor, Entomology
Research Interests: genetics of insect-pathogen interactions; individual variation in resistance to infection; immune response in overall host physiology; natural selection on the immune system.

Eirene Markenscoff-Papadimitriou, Assistant Professor, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: gene regulatory mechanisms controlling neuronal identity and function during brain development; autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders

Philipp Messer, Assistant Professor, Biological Statistics & Computational Biology
Research Interests: Population genetics; evolutionary genomics; computational biology

Wojtek Pawlowski, Professor, School of Integrative Plant Science: Plant Breeding & Genetics, Plant Biology
Research Interests: Mechanisms and evolution of meiotic recombination; meiosis; evolutionary genomics

Joseph Peters, Professor, Microbiology
Research Interests: Molecular mechanisms of genome stability and evolution; novel transposon targeting mechanisms recognizing DNA replication and RNA-based systems utilizing CRISPR/Cas

Robert Reed, Associate Professor, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Research Interests: Evolution of developmental mechanisms; cis-regulatory evolution; functional genomics; animal color patterns; phenotypic plasticity

Gary Whittaker, Professor, Microbiology & Immunology
Research Interests: Entry of influenza and coronaviruses into host cells

Mariana Wolfner, Goldwin Smith Professor and Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow , Molecular Biology & Genetics
Research Interests: Functions and evolution of seminal proteins and other important reproductive molecules; Molecular genetics of the egg-to-embryo transition; Drosophila model system and the dengue-vector mosquito. 

Haiyuan Yu, Professor, Computational Biology
Research Interests: Network Systems Biology, Deep learning (large language models), Molecular evolution, Statistical genetics, Mass spectrometry, Structural proteomics and protein modeling, functional genomics, protein networks, gene regulation, understanding how noncoding and coding genomic variation in disease and across populations affect gene expression, protein structure and function, and lead to complex traits.