Lab Staff
LAB PHONE: 607-253-4295 LAB FAX: 607-253-4495
Department of Biomedical Sciences
Lab Locations: Veterinary Research Tower (VRT) T3 001, T3 010, T3 014
Paula E. Cohen, Ph.D.
Kelly Corbett
J. Kim Holloway, Ph.D.
Rebecca Holmes, D.Phil.
Rui Kan, Ph.D.
Meisha A. Morelli
Elle Roberson (Summer Student)
Xianfei Sun
Anton M. Svetlanov
Tamar Weinstock
Paula E. Cohen, Ph.D.
pc242@cornell.edu
Tel: 607-253-4301
I did my undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at the University of London, England, and then went to New York City for two years to do a postdoctoral fellowship in the lab of Jeff Pollard at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Seven years later, and still in NYC, I took my first faculty position, also at Albert Einstein College, before making the move northward to Cornell.
During my PhD, I worked on the endocrine control of implantation in mice and in roe deer, and from there I moved on to study the role of macrophages and growth factors in steroid biosynthesis in the ovary and testis and in gonadal development. At the same time, I became involved in a collaboration to study mammalian gametogenesis in knockout mice that were being used as a model for colon cancer. This opened the door to a whole new world for me, one that included chromosomes, DNA repair, and genetics, and I have never looked back. This has allowed me to study genetic phenomena, such as recombination, and to combine such studies with my long-standing interest in reproductive biology and gametogenesis. I am really standing at the point at which all my research worlds collide and the view from here is quite breath-taking.
When I am not writing grants, papers, and animal protocols, and if I’m not in the lab, I like to read, cook, ski, watch movies, and spend time with my badly neglected cat (Scruffy) and with my friends and family.
Kelly Corbett
Undergraduate Student
klc65@cornell.edu
I'm a biology major undergraduate, in the College of Ag and Life Sci, and this is my first lab experience doing research. I'm focused on the KAT mutation in Nek1 mice at the moment. Eventually I hope to apply to vet school.
J. Kim Holloway, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
jkh44@cornell.edu
I recently joined the Cohen lab and hope to work on genomic stability in mismatch repair mutant mice. I gained my Ph.D from the University of Leicester in the UK, by looking at linkage disequilibrium in the human genome and directly measuring the frequency and distribution of meiotic recombination events in the male germline. It is thought to be a general feature of the human genome that recombination events are clustered into narrow 2kb intervals, known as hotspots, which tend to puntuate extended blocks of limited haplotype diversity. To date, several human meiotic recombination hotspots have been characterised at high resolution by mapping recombination events in single sperm.
I am originally from Manchester, in the north of England, and am a supporter of the mighty Manchester United Football Club (that’s football, not soccer).
I have recently taken up playing squash and tennis and am hoping to learn to snowboard in the winter here in Ithaca, as I hear it’s a bit chilly here then.
Rebecca Holmes, D.Phil.
Research Associate
rh229@cornell.edu
My background is in epigenetics. I received my D.Phil. (PhD) from Oxford, UK, where I studied the Gnas complex imprinted locus. I continued with epigenetic studies during my first postdoc here at Cornell where I investigated the role of a repeat sequence in methylation maintenance at Rasgrf1. Now I want to investigate the role of RNAi components in meiosis. Out of the lab I love spinning, squash and swimming and am trying to convert the rest of the lab to these sports!
Dr. Holmes is a Genomics Scholar of Cornell's Center for Vetebrate Genomics
Rui Kan , Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
rk258@cornell.edu
The studies I had been doing include the genetic association of candidate genes with susceptibility to late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (LOAD) in Chinese and the molecular genetics of Craniofrontonasal syndrome (CFNS) and Crouzon syndrome.
My research is recently focused on the role of the DNA mismatch repair (MMR) family in human meiosis. We hope to understand the recombination and disjunction events in human oocytes, the fate of human oocytes after meiotic recombination events, and the genetic/environmental influences on recombination proficiency in human oocytes.
Meisha A. Morelli
Graduate Student
mam288@cornell.edu
I am a 6th year graduate student in the Cohen lab and I moved from Albert
Einstein to Cornell when the lab relocated to Cornell in 2004. I have two
main projects in the lab. The first project focuses on the creation of a
novel live imaging system for mammalian spermatocytes in order to visualize
and study the dynamics of meiotic prophase I progression. This was done by
creating a transgenic mouse with fluorescently tagged SYCP3 (a major
component of the Synaptonemal Complex). My second project involves the
investigation of the meiotic role of BLM, the protein mutated in Bloom¹s
Syndrome, a disorder characterized by hyper-recombination and genomic
instability. I am cucrently characterizing a mouse carrying a
testis-specific deletion of the BLM protein.
Xianfei Sun
Graduate Student
xs33@cornell.edu
I am a first year graduate student in the field of physiology, department of biomedical sciences. I recently joined The Cohen lab and plan to start my Ph.D research in this new family. The first project I will work on is to study gene expression profiles in mismatch repair mutant female mice.
Anton M. Svetlanov
Graduate Student
ams339@cornell.edu
I am a fourth year graduate student working towards Ph.D. degree. I am associated with Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Department of Molecular Genetics, New York where I started in the graduate program, and now also with Cornell University, Department of Biomedical Sciences. I have a degree in pharmaceutics and have done research in the field of diabetes and virology before choosing Paula Cohen's lab and meiosis as a filed of study for my doctorate degree. The projects I am working on in the lab are aimed at understanding of the roles of mammalian mismatch repair proteins (MutS and MutL homologs) in meiotic recombination and DNA repair. I am using the method of chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) to explore the DNA binding sites for these proteins across the whole mammalian genome (mouse and human), and for analysis of specific MutS- and MutL-homolog mouse mutants. In collaboration with the laboratory of Dr. Bernard deMassy (Institut de Génétique Humaine, France) I am also studying the role of mouse MutL homolog 3 in the recombination at meiotic ecombination hot-spot Psmb9 (Lmp2). By comparing the whole-genome data, obtained by ChIP combined with DNA microarrays, with existing meiotic recombination maps obtained by genetic methods (analysis of various crosses and lineages) we also hope to contribute to creating of more complete map of meiotic recombination. (Please see my list of references)
Tamar Weinstock
Undergraduate Student
tmw28@cornell.edu
Last Update October 4, 2006