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LAST NAME FIRST NAME TITLE DEPARTMENT BIO PHONE  EMAIL MAIN INTERESTS SPECIFIC INTERESTS TYPES OF STEM CELLS MODEL ORGANISMS RELEVANT DISEASES - GENERAL RELEVANT DISEASES - SPECIFIC
Abeliovich Asa Associate Professor  Pathology
Neurology 		 His research interests regard the development, function, and survival of midbrain dopamine neurons -- the cells lost in Parkinson’s disease and implicated in other disorders.  With respect to the development of dopamine neurons, the focus is on relatively late postmitotic maturation events that generate a functional and integrated dopamine neuron.  As a simple model system, the lab has focused on an murine and human ES cell-based model systems.  They have identified transcription factors and microRNAs that function in a network to regulate the maturation of midbrain dopamine neurons.  A potential translational application of this work relates to cell-based therapies in Parkinson’s.  With respect to dopamine neuron survival, the lab has studied the normal and pathological activities of Parkinson’s disease-associated genes.  They have again taken advantage of ES cell-based model systems for deriving murine and human cells with a midbrain dopamine neuron phenotype.  A goal  is to use such cells genetically modified ES stem cell-based assays to identify potential therapeutics that modify the pathology in Parkinson’s disease models.
 212-305-1150 aa900@columbia.edu Neuronal development and maturation
Parkinson's disease
Disease models		       Neurodegenerative  PD
Alzheimer's
Al-Awqati / Oliver Qais / Juan Professor Medicine Qais Al-Awqati is the Robert F. Loeb Professor of Medicine and has worked on epithelial differentiation for most of his career. His work on Stem Cells in the kidney began whn in collaboration with Dr Juan Oliver they discovered the presence of label retaining cells in the kidney papilla which respond to kidney injury by migrating out of the papilla into the cortex where they can be seen to replace epithelial cells in the kidney. 212-305-3512 qa1@columbia.edu Stem cells of adult organs
Self renewal migration and characteristics of the niche		 Role of wnt pathway in maintaining stem cell function and the role of CXCR4 in migration embryonic
Adult Kidney		 Mouse
Rat		 Ischemic injury
Papillary diseases such as obstruction		 none
Appelbaum Paul S. Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine and Law
Director, Division of Law, Ethics and Psychiatry		 Psychiatry My research interests focus broadly on ethical and legal issues in medical treatment and research. Particular foci have included informed consent (assessing patients’ understanding and expectations, improving disclosure and comprehension, assessing and addressing therapeutic misconception, evaluating decisional capacity, assessing voluntariness of consent) and research ethics (improving disclosures to subjects, use of placebos, risk/benefit ratios, conflicts of interest, and other areas). A psychiatrist by training, I am also an affiliate faculty member at Columbia Law School, where I teach seminars in informed consent and mental health law. 212-543-4184 psa21@columbia.edu Ethics Decision making about involvement in reseearch and innovative treatment, informed consent, decisional capacity, legal regulation and new technologies   Humans    
Arancio Ottavio   Pathology     oa1@columbia.edu            
Bestor Timothy H. Professor Genetics and Development Our interests are focused on the mechanisms that underlie non-Mendelian inheritance and the roles of genomic methylation patterns in transposon silencing and genomic imprinting.  Stem cells have very efficient systems that silence and methylate newly integrated DNA, especially retroviral DNA. We are also interested in the abnormalities of genomic methylation patterns that are seen breast cancer. We found that stem cells have an inefficient decatenation checkpoint that causes them to enter anaphase with entangled chromosomes, which leads to the high frequency of chromosome aberrations that are common in embryonic stem cells. 212-305-5331 thb12@columbia.edu Cancer
Gene therapy
Epigenetic effects in mammalian stem cells		 DNA methylation and epigenetics in stem cells Mouse and human ES cells Mouse
Human		 Cancer Breast cancer
Bhattacharya Jahar   Medicine     jb39@columbia.edu            
Cairo Mitchell Professor Pediatrics
Medicine
Pathology		 Dr. Mitchell S. Cairo is a Professor of Pediatrics, Medicine and Pathology and Chief of the Division of Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplantation. His interests are in allogeneic stem cell transplantation for childhood malignant and non-malignant diseases, plasticity of cord blood stem cells and expansion and reengineering of cord blood immune cells. His laboratory is focused on regenerative capacity of cord blood and placental stem cells and ex vivo and genetic reengineering of cord blood stem and immune cells. 212-3-5-8316 mc1310@columbia.edu Lineage Specification
Cancer
Bioengineering
Clinical		 Cord blood
Placental blood
Bone marrow
Peripheral blood stem cells		   Human
NOD/SCID xenografts		 Cancer
Hematology
Immunology
Cardiology
Neurology		  
Cannoll Peter Assistant Professor Pathology
Neuropathology		 Dr. Canoll is a practicing neuropathologist and brain tumor researcher. His lab studies the relationship between adult neural/glial progenitors and gliomas. He and his collaborators have shown that human glioblastomas contain distinct populations of progenitor-like and stem-like cells. They are using xenograft models to characterize the tumorigenic potential of these different populations and to test the effects of targeted therapy. They have developed a number of animal models that use retroviral delivery of growth factors (PDGF) and cre mediated deletion of tumor suppressor genes (PTEN and P53) to test the effects on the tumorigenic potential of adult neural progenitors and are using these models to test effects of targeted therapy aimed at blocking PDGF driven signaling pathways.  They are also using the human glioma xenografts and animal models to study the cellular mechanisms of progenitor cell and glioma cell migration and infiltration. 212-851-4632 pc561@columbia.edu Cancer
Disease models		 Tumorigenic potential of adult neural progenitors/stem cells Adult stem cells
progenitors		 Human
Mouse
Rat		    
Christiano Angela   Dermatology Recent advances in stem cell research have revealed that not only can adult cells serve as stem cell repositories for the tissue they derive from, but they exhibit a remarkable degree of plasticity and can differentiate into other cell types when put in the right inductive environment. Dr. Christiano has initiated a comprehensive program of cellular transplantation and reprogramming that holds great promise toward advancing the feasibility of successfully treating a broad spectrum of disorders of the skin, as well as providing a source of easily-accessible multipotent adult stem cells for the regeneration of other organs.  Dr. Christiano will define the potential for adult skin and hair follicle stem cells to regenerate themselves, as well as to serve as a source of donor cells for the generation of neurons, bone, cartilage and other cell types. Her lab will exploit the inductive properties of adult hair follicle dermal cells combined with 3D culture and tissue engineered scaffolds to induce new hair follicles. The lab will use adult hair follicle epidermal stem cells and hair follicle dermal stem cells to create a skin equivalent that leads to scarless wound healing.  Dr. Christiano's lab will define conditions to direct the differentiation of adult hair follicle dermal cells into other cell types, such as neuron, bone, cartilage or bone marrow.  Finally,  the lab will use adult hair follicle dermal cells to induce other epithelial tissues (such as cornea or amnion) to become skin with hair follicles. It is anticipated that her work will significantly advance the knowledge base in the field of regenerative medicine as it applies to the skin as both a donor source and recipient of reprogrammable adult stem cells.                
Chung Wendy Assistant Professor
Director of Clinical Genetics		 Pediatrics
Medicine		   212-851-5313 wkc15@columbia.edu Clinical       Human genetic diseases Preimplantation genetic diagnosis
Cleveland William   Medicine - St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center     wlc1@columbia.edu            
Clynes Raphael Assistant Professor Medicine
Microbiology		 STAT3 is a transcription factor known to contribute to cytokine receptor signaling and regulation of cell growth and differentiation. In particular STAT3 is activated and contributes to self-renewal of embryonic and hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). Together with collaborators at MSKCC, we have recently developed a novel mouse model in which STAT3 can be inducibly turned on and off in a manner restricted to the hematopoietic lineage, permitting genetic analysis of its requirement and sufficiency for HSC maintenance and renewal. To date we have shown that induction of STAT3 activity results in a >10-fold expansion of long-lived HSCs at steady-state, due to increased HSC self renewal. This system will enable identification of STAT3 target genes critical for HSC maintenance. Further, using the inducible STAT3 ON/OFF genetic system in leukemic cancer models we are poised to address the oncogenic of STAT3 in tumor stem cells.    212-305-5289 rc645@columbia.edu Inflammation
Cancer		   Hematopoietic
Breast epithelial cells		 Mouse Cancer AML
CML
ALL
CLL
Breast cancer 
Colovai Adriana   Pathology     aic4@columbia.edu            
Cornish Virginia   Chemistry     vc114@columbia.edu            
Dauer William   Center for Parkinson's Disease and Other Movement Disorders An enigmatic feature of many genetic diseases is that mutations in widely expressed genes cause tissue-specific illness. One example is DYT1 dystonia, a neurodevelopmental disease caused by an in-frame deletion (∆E) in the gene encoding torsinA. We discovered that neurons from both torsinA null (Tor1a-/-) and homozygous disease mutant ‘‘knockin’’ mice (Tor1aDE/DE) contain severely abnormal nuclear membranes, although non-neuronal cell types appear normal. These membrane abnormalities develop in post-migratory embryonic neurons and subsequently worsen with further neuronal maturation, a finding evocative of the developmental dependence of DYT1 dystonia. These observations demonstrate that neurons have a unique requirement for nuclear envelope localized torsinA function.
To explore mechanism underlying this phenomenon, we isolated Tor1aDE/DE embryonic stem (ES) cells and demonstrate that they develop NE blebs when differentiated into neurons, but show no NE abnormality when differentiated into myocytes. Thus, this in vitro model system appears to recapitulate the in vivo Tor1a phenotype. We are currently using this ES-based system to identify the features that make neurons uniquely susceptible to torsinA loss-of-function. Such studies may reveal distinct features of the neuronal nuclear envelope, and provide insight into previously unrecognized aspect of normal neuronal function. In addition, human ES cells from DYT1 carriers are available, and the study of those cells would be the logical extension of our work.		                
Del Priore Lucian   Ophthalmology Our goal is to use stem cell transplantation to treat for age-related macular degeneration and peripheral retinal degenerations, Retinal degenerations are the leading cause of blindness in the world. We are inducing hESC to differentiate into retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) or neural retinal cells by seeding the hESC onto human Bruch’s membrane (BM) explants prior to transplantation into animal models of human retinal degeneration. This is the first time human BM will be used or this purpose. Simultaneously we are initiating studies on isolation of tissue-specific stem cells from the eye, and investigating the efficacy of transplanting tissue-specific and differentiated hESC into animal models of retinal degenerations.                
Doetsch Fiona   Pathology Stem cells persist in specialized niches in the adult mammalian brain where they continuously generate large numbers of neurons that become functionally integrated into neural circuits.  We have shown that the stem cells for in vivo adult neurogenesis are a subset of astrocytes, glial cells classically associated with support functions in the brain. We are using a variety of molecular, cellular and genetic approaches to discover the regulation, lineage relationships, diversity and function of stem cells and neuronal production in the adult mammalian brain. Uncovering the biology of neural stem cells and their in vivo niche is key to understanding brain repair and neural pathologies.                
Feinmark Steven   Pharmacology     sjf1@columbia.edu            
Ferrando Asa Assistant Professor Institute for Cancer Genetics I joined the Institute of Cancer Genetics in January 2005 after completing my post-doctoral training on the molecular basis of T-cell lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) in the laboratory of Dr. Thomas Look at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Following on our studies of gene expression signatures associated with T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (Cancer Cell 1: 75-87, 2002; Blood 102: 262-268, 2003; Blood 103: 1909-1911, 2004; Lancet 363: 535-536, 2004) and our identification of mutations in the NOTCH1 in T-ALL (Science 306: 269-271, 2004), my lab has been dissecting the molecular circuits that control leukemic transformation downstream of NOTCH1 activation in T-ALL cells.  Thus, over the last three years we have established: (i) the role of NOTCH1 as a direct regulator of cell growth and metabolism (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 103: 18261-18266, 2006), (ii)  a transcriptional regulatory circuit controlling the MYC oncogene downstream of NOTCH1 in T-cell transformation (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 103: 18261-18266, 2006); (iii) the role of  PTEN mutations and consequent activation of the PI3K pathway as a major mechanism of leukemia resistance to treatment with NOTCH inhibitors (Palomero Nat Med XXXXX2007); (iv) a synergistic role of NOTCH1 inhibition and glucocorticoids in the treatment of T-ALL; and (V) a new class of oncogenic mutations in NOTCH1 in T-ALL with a unique mechanism of action (Blood 2008 in press).  212-851-4611 af2196@columbia.edu Self renewal
Lineage specification
Cancer		   Hematopoietic stem cells Mouse
Human		 Cancer Leukemia
Firestein Stuart   Biological Sciences     sjf24@columbia.edu            
Fischbach Ruth Professor Center for Bioethics
Department of Psychiatry		 Dr. Ruth Fischbach is Professor of Bioethics in the Department of Psychiatry (P&S) and the Department of Sociomedical Sciences (MSPH). She directs the Columbia University Center for Bioethics. Dr. Fischbach has had an enduring interest in the burgeoning field of stem cell experimentation and is frequently invited to offer presentations on the ethical implications of human embryonic stem cell research. She chaired the committee that drew up the University’s guidelines for stem cell research and serves as a member of the University’s Stem Cell Oversight Committee.  She also serves on the CUMC Ethics Committee, CHONY Ethics Committee, and is an advisor to the CUMC IRB. Dr. Fischbach is an active member of several national and regional committees concerned with safeguarding the rights and welfare of participants of research. 212-305-8387 Rf416@columbia.edu  Clinical
Ethics		 Human experimentation
Clinical applications 		 embryonic
hematopoietic
neural		      
Freytes Donald   Biomedical Engineering     donald.freytes@gmail.com            
Goff Stephen   Biochemistry Goff is best known for the development of retroviruses as a genetic system. He has used mutagenesis to define the functional domains of the viral protease, reverse transcriptase, and integrase in the life cycle. His lab was also the first to express enzymatically active reverse transcriptase in bacteria, and to localize its two major enzymatic activities. Goff has been particularly active in applying the yeast two-hybrid method to study interactions between viral and cellular proteins and to identify novel host factors for virus replication. His group has recently begun using somatic cell genetics to directly identify new cellular components utilized early in retrovirus infection.                
Goland Robin   Medicine - Endocrinology Dr. Goland is a clinical investigator who studies diabetes. Studies done in collaboration with investigators at Columbia University and Harvard University focus on somatic cell nuclear transfer (NT) and cell fusion with human cells. The object of these experiments is to obtain embryonic stem cell lines that carry a particular genetic background, specifically a genetic combination that gives rise to diabetes.  Individuals with diabetes are be asked to donate a small skin biopsy  Fibroblasts derived from these skin biopsies are grown in tissue culture and used as nuclear donors for NT into oocytes and human embryonic cells.                
Goldman James Professor
Director		 Pathology
Division of Neuropathology		 Our goal is to define time- and location-specific patterns of glial and neuronal development and to understand the roles of environmental and lineage-controlled factors in specifying cell fate.  Using viral gene transfer, transgenic mice, isolation of progenitors by FACS, and culture systems, we have been defining the migration of precursor cells from germinal zones of the perinatal rodent forebrain and cerebellum and the development of these precursors into neurons and glia.  We have been able to watch precursor migration in real time in living slices and have determined a number of ways to change migration patterns with pharmacological agents and growth factors. Current studies include:  1. studying how astrocyte and oligodendrocyte precursors regulate their proliferation; 2. studying how growth factors and transcription factors regulate the decision of neural stem cells to differentiate into neurons or glia; 3. understanding the nature of cycling precursor cells in the adult CNS to understand their fates under normal and pathological situations.  As a neuropathologist, I am particularly interested in how these precursors respond in neurological diseases.  For example, cycling precursors in adult white matter differentiate into myelinating oligodendrocytes after demyelination.  We can also keep these adult cells immature and proliferative in vivo by activating EGF or PDGF signaling pathways.  Understanding control on adult glial precursor proliferation is likely to help us understand the genesis of gliomas.       212-305-3554 jeg5@columbia.edu     Neural Mouse
Rat
Human		 Neurodegenerative
Cancer
Demyelinating		 Multiple sclerosis
Leukodystrophies
Gliomas
Grayson Warren   Biomedical Engineering     wg2138@columbia.edu            
Grishok Alla Assistant Professor Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics Dr Alla Grishok is an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics. Her lab is using nematode C. elegans for studying how RNA interference is involved in regulation of gene expression on the transcriptional level. The areas of investigation include both mechanistic studies of chromatin-related RNAi factors as well as genetic studies of RNAi mutants and their effects on cellular differentiation, development and longevity. One of the projects in the lab is focused on understanding how RNAi pathway genes cooperate with Rb in repressing germ cell fates in somatic tissues. 212-305-9893 ag2691@columbia.edu Lineage specification
Cancer
Disease models
Bioinformatics		 RNAi
Chromatin modifications
Epigenetics		   C.elegans    
Hasselgren Gunnar   College of Dental Medicine - Endodontics     bgh1@columbia.edu            
Hazelrigg Tulle   Biological Sciences     tih1@columbia.edu            
Heicklen Alice   Biological Sciences     ah2289@columbia.edu            
Hen  Rene                      
Henderson Christopher E. Professor Pathology
Neurology
Neuroscience		 Chris Henderson spent much of his career in France but moved in 2005 to take up a position as Professor of Pathology, Neurology and Neuroscience at Columbia. He is one of the co-directors of the Center for Motor Neuron Biology and Disease (MNC), a new initiative in translational neuroscience involving 40 laboratories working on a range of topics related to the motor neuron diseases ALS and SMA, from basic research on developmental mechanisms through to clinical research. Henderson’s work is focused on motor neuron development and pathology, and in particular on mechanisms of growth, survival and cell death. His interest in therapeutic applications of his work led him to co-found Trophos, a drug discovery biotech which currently has a drug in clinical trials for ALS and SMA.  His interest in stem cell research derives from the possibility, developed at Columbia, of using mouse and human ES cells to produce large quantities of motor neurons representative of mouse models of disease or human patients.  The Henderson lab uses these mostly as an in vitro tool for studying disease mechanisms and for drug screening.     Neuronal development
Cell death
Disease models
High-throughput screening		 Motor neuron development
Neurotrophic factors
Axonal guidance and regeneration
Transcriptional determination of neuronal diversity
ES cell-derived models of ALS and SMA		 Embryonic Mouse
Human		 Neurodegenerative
Trauma		 ALS
SMA
Spinal cord injury
Hobert Oliver Associate Professor
HHMI Investigator		 Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics Dr. Hobert is an Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics and Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. One of the interests in his lab are to elucidate the genetic mechanisms that control cell lineage specification in the nervous system, using C.elegans as a model system. The stem cell-related perspective of these sorts of studies are to identity molecules that may be able to program specific cellular fates in vitro. 212-305-0063 or38@columbia.edu Cell lineage specification   Neuronal C. elegans PD  
Hofer Myron   Psychiatry - Developmental Psychobiology     mah6@columbia.edu            
Huang Hayden   Biomedical Engineering     hh2351@columbia.edu            
Hung Clark   Biomedical Engineering     cth6@columbia.edu            
Ichise Masanori   Radiology     mi2193@columbia.edu            
Itescu Silviu   Medicine - Cardiology My research covers the off-the-shelf utility of allogeneic adult mesenchymal progenitor cells (MPCs).  These cells have a low cost of goods, can be easily culture expanded under GMP conditions, have regulatory controls for release and potency criteria allowing for uniformity of product, are 1000 fold purer than other cell types and can be used to treat unrelated patients without the need for immunosupression.  We have demonstrated proof-of-principle safety and efficacy of these cells in a variety of indications covering cardiovascular, eye disease, orthopedic and bone marrow transplantation.  Our focus is on understanding the basic science mechanism for how these cells exert their effects and how to harness their potential and translate the findings to clinical practice.                
Jacobs Christopher Associate Professor Biomedical Engineering Dr. Jacobs is a new recruit to DBME from Mechanical Engineering at Stanford.  His is broadly interested in the molecular mechanisms whereby cells sense and respond to changes in their mechanical environment.  His is specifically interested in this question in the context of bone.  He not only investigates how existing osteoblasts and osteocytes are regulated by their mechanical environment, but also how mechanics affects the proliferation and differentiation of bone cell progenitors and marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells. 
His group has recently focused on structural molecules as potential sites of molecular mechanosensing including the actin cytoskeleton and focal adhesions.  They also have shown that the cell’s primary cilia act as mechanical sensors and as a center for the integration of biophysical and biochemical stimuli.  Recent preliminary data have been collected addressing the role of primary cilia in the differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells into osteoblasts, chondrocytes, and adipocytes.  Dr. Jacobs lab utilizes cell culture approaches as well as tissue specific conditional knockouts in mice. 
212 854 4460 crj2111@columbia.edu Bioengineering
Mechanobiology		 Cell Mechanics
Bone
Mechanosensing 		 Mesenchymal Mouse Orthopaedic disease Osteoporosis
Jessell Thomas   Neuroscience                  
Johnson Laura Associate Professor Genetics & Development Our research goal is to understand how developing organs grow and ultimately cease growth. We use the simple genetic model organism Drosophila, and utilize strategies that allow manipulation of growth in living, growing animals. Our studies attempt to define the organ-intrinsic growth regulatory program in molecular terms.

Much of our work addresses how a cell’s growth status is communicated to its neighbors during organ development. One process, cell competition, allows cells to rapidly sense and respond to growth changes in their immediate environment. Recent work from our lab indicates that cells in competition also use mechanisms to cooperate with their neighbors, ensuring optimal organ fitness. These processes provide plasticity to growing organs, and we are addressing their importance in normal growth and during regeneration. 		 212-305-1688 lj180@columbia.edu       Fly Cancer
Neurodegenerative
Metabolic		 MD
ALS
Diabetes
Cancer (Numerous)
Ju  Jingyue   Chemical Engineering     dj222@columbia.edu            
Kalderon Daniel Professor Biological Sciences PI at Columbia (1988-): Isolated PKA mutants to study developmental functions, including role in Hedgehog signaling.  Mechanism of Hedgehog signal transduction studied by molecular developmental genetics in embryos and wing discs since about 1994 and ongoing.  Study of Hedgehog signaling in ovaries led to finding of an essential regulatory role on ovarian somatic stem cells (2001). Excess pathway activity leads to increase in stem cell numbers, whereas loss of pathway activity reduces stem cell longevity. Now studying regulation of these stem cells more generally, including the role of other signaling pathways and by screens for genes with selective requirement for maintenance of these stem cells. Would like to develop strategies for examining expression profile and DNA occupancy by transcription factors in these stem cells and to examine their cellular interactions more carefully. 212-854-6469 ddk1@columbia.edu Self-renewal
Niche interactions		 Impact of signaling pathways on stem cell behavior.  Functional differences between stem cells and their daughters (perhaps including response to stress and necessity to continually re-enter cell cycles or pass especially sensitive checkpoints). Source of epithelial cells that envelop germline cells in ovaries Drosophila Certainly gives insights about cancer. Current work on ROS and stress responses may provide a strong link with neurodegeneration, especially Parkinson’s Disease  
Kam Lance   Biomedical Engineering     lk2141@columbia.edu            
Kitajewski Jan   Pathology / ICRC     jkk9@columbia.edu            
Klitzman  Robert   Psychiatry - HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies     rlk2@columbia.edu            
Kottman Andreas   Psychiatry     ak139@columbia.edu            
Landry Don   Medicine - Nephrology Donald W. Landry, M.D., Ph.D., is the Interim Chair of Medicine and Director of the Division of Experimental Therapeutics. He is the leading proponent of an alternative method for the production of human embryonic stem cells that relies on harvesting live, normal cells from embryos that by objective, peer reviewed criteria have died of natural causes. By conducting natural history studies on human embryos engendered for the purpose of reproduction, he is precisely defining death in embryos based on arrested growth. Cells harvested from dead embryos would be covered under the established ethics undergirding essential organ donation from deceased donors.                
Laufer Edward   Pathology     elaufer@columbia.edu            
Lee Francis Associate Professor
Vice Chair for Research		 Orthopaedic Surgery Dr. Lee is Associate Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. His research interest is connective tissue engineering using mesenchymal stem cells. As an orthopaedic surgeon, there have been a number of cases where bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells and bone graft substitutes were applied for the treatment of skeletal defects. Another area of research is to develop a novel molecular adjuvant treatment for sarcomas using mesenchymal stem cells and siRNAs. (212) 305-3293 fl127@columbia.edu  Mesenchymal stem cell
Osteoblasts
Tissue Engineering
Biomaterial Interface
Engineered mesenchymal stem cells
Sarcoma Treatment		 Mesenchymal stem cells Human
Mouse		 Skeletal Defect
Biomaterials and MSC interaction
Sarcoma treatment
    
Leibel Rudolph   Pediatrics - Molecular Genetics Current research activities include efforts to identify genes (and relevant allelic variants) related to obesity and/or type 2 diabetes in mice and humans. The lab has particular interest in the molecular physiology of the energy homeostasis and glucose/insulin metabolism. The lab is expert in the use of naturally occurring and transgenic rodent models to identify candidate molecules, and in vetting these candidates in large numbers of human subjects using high throughput methods (DHPLC, fluorescence-based SNP detection). The lab shares responsibility with the Columbia Genome Center for the creation and maintenance of the Columbia University microarray facility (CUMAP), and has personnel expert in the relevant molecular and information science.                
Lu Helen Associate Professor Biomedical Engineering Dr. Helen H. Lu received her academic training in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania, and joined the faculty at Columbia in the summer of 2001.  She is currently the Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and the Director of the Biomaterial and Interface Tissue Engineering Laboratory.  She also holds a joint appointment at the College of Dental Medicine.  Our research centers on understanding how the biological interface between different types of connective tissues (e.g. bone and ligament or tendon) are formed and maintained in the body, and more importantly, how to re-establish these distinct tissue-to-tissue boundaries post injury.  Our working hypothesis is that heterotypic cellular communications play a significant role in the regeneration and homeostasis of distinct skeletal tissue boundaries.  Specifically, we have been charatcterizing the structure-function relationship at the native soft tissue-bone interface, as well as applying these insights to the design of tissue engineering-based methods and technologies which can facilitate biological fixation and enable the integration of orthopaedic soft tissue graft with bone.  Additionally, we are investigating the role of heterotypic cellular interactions in the mechanism regulating interface maintenance as well as stem cell-mediated repair of these distinct tissue-to-tissue boundaries.
 212 854 4071 hl2052@columbia.edu Biomaterial-mediated stem cell differentiation
Effects of heterotypic cellular interactions on stem cell differentiation
Stem cell-based soft tissue engineering
Stemm cell-based dental and craniofacial tissue engineering		 Advanced scaffold design for multi-tissue formation and integration
Stem cell-Biomaterial Interactions on polymer-composite scaffolds
Multi-scale co-culture models to evaluate the effects of cellular interactions on stem cell differentiation
Growth factor delivery for controlling stem cell differentiation		 Adult mesenchymal stem cells
hemotopoietic stem cells
stem cell lines		 Human
Bovine
Rabbit
Rat		    
Lu Jonathan         luxxram@gmail.com            
Mann Richard Professor Biochem. & Mol Biophysics My lab studies the development of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, with a special focus on Hox genes and proximo-distal axis formation in the appendages. Three projects in the lab are related to stem cell biology. In the first, we are studying how cells switch from a multi-potential and proliferative state to a committed and differentiated state during the development of the Drosophila eye. Cell types at all stages of this transition are displayed along the AP axis of the eye imaginal disc, which gives rise to the adult eye. A particular focus is how two transcription factors, encoded by the homothorax (hth) and teashirt (tsh) genes, maintain cells in the immature, undifferentiated state.
A second project concerns how uncommitted cells of the embryonic leg primordia give rise to committed cell types along the proximo-distal (PD) axis of the adult leg. New reagents developed in the lab have recently allowed us to revise the fate map of the embryonic leg primordia.
A third project, which is relatively new to the lab, is to identify neural stem cells. We are characterizing both the normal stem cells (neuroblasts) that give rise to the adult motor neurons in the leg, and also examining if bona fide stem cells exist in the adult CNS of the fly.		 212-305-7731 rsm10@columbia.edu Lineage specification
Self renewal		   Neural
Organ-specific		 Drosophila   ALS
Cancer
Mao Jeremy Professor
Director		 Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Laboratory
College of Dental Medicine		   212-305-4475 jmao@columbia.edu Self renewal
Lineage specification
Disease models
Bioengineering		 Hematopoietic stem cells
Mesenchymal stem cells
Tooth derived stem cells		   Mice
Minipigs
Rabbits
Rats		 Diabetes
Osteoarthritis
Soft tissue trauma
Breast cancer
Craniofacial defects		  
Marolt Darja   Biomedical Engineering     dm2453@columbia.edu            
Mason Carol   Pathology and Cell Biology We have identified programs genes that are important for cell identity in the developing retina, the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye.  These genes direct retinal axon growth through the optic chiasm, where retinal fibers redistribute to one or the other side of the brain toward visual targets.  This circuit is crucial for binocular vision. Current experiments involve in utero gene delivery into the normal and albino mouse retina to rescue defects in visual system circuitry. With these studies, we aim to develop gene therapy and cell transplantation to reduce visual defects in humans.                
Matushansky  Igor Assistant Professor Medical Oncology/Medicine The overall goal of my research is to examine the relationship between tumorigenesis and differentiation (i.e., the process by which stem/precursor cells develop into specialized mature tissue). This is a critical relationship central to understanding the origins of cancer cells. My hypothesis is that malignant transformation of progenitor cells at different stages of differentiation results in the various histological sub-types of a specific malignancy and that recapitulation of normal differentiation pathways in tumor cells may reprogram cells to reenter the differentiation program. To address this, my efforts are focused on elucidating the relationships between mesenchymal stem cells (both undifferentiated and differentiated) and sarcomas. 212 851 4556 im17@columbia.edu   Sarcomas
Mechanisms controlling mesenchymal stem cell commitment to differentiation
“differentiation therapy” for sarcomas
 Mesenchymal stem cells  Human
Mouse		 Sarcomas  
McCabe Brian   Physiology and Cellular Biophysics     bm2157@columbia.edu            
Mitsumoto Hiroshi   Neurology Dr. Hiroshi Mitsumoto is interested in research that involves patient care and works to find the cause and treatment of ALS.  He is participating in a number of clinical trials in ALS and helping his colleagues to lead major clinical trials funded by NIH.  He is interested in genetic environmental epidemiology, oxidative stress markers, and environmental stressors in ALS.  He has directed in the comprehensive study of objective diagnostic markers for upper and lower motor neuron dysfunction.  He is interested in exercise in patients with ALS, in terms of improving muscle strength and ALS function, but at the same time, he is interested in the effects of cycle exercise to experimentally generate oxidative stress in patients.  He is also interested in improving patient care.  He is participating in the nuclear transfer of ALS patient fibroblasts to fertilized human oocyte to generate the patient’s ES cells.  He has also initiated skin-derived stem cells.  He has been in contact with Dr. Jonathan Wolpaw, Wadsworth NYS Laboratory, to start a joint project in the brain-computer-interface (BCI) field.  He has been working with NYS Senators and Assemblymen to develop an NYS ALS patient registry.                 
Morris Rebecca   Dermatology Rebecca J. Morris, Ph.D., is isolating the target cells in skin carcinogenesis with the goal of understanding the regulation of adult stem cell number and proliferative potential in normal and abnormal epidermis.  Her laboratory has recently developed a transgenic mouse model for visualizing the progeny of hair follicle stem cells as they develop into skin tumors.  She is currently determining whether the hair follicle progeny become tumor stem cells.  Other studies in the Morris laboratory are focused on the role of bone marrow derived stem cells in the pathogenesis of skin cancer, and development of culture systems for human hair follicle stem cells.      </