CUNY joins 9 other academic research institutions in owning and operating a new world-class scientific research facility. Housed at The City College, the New York Structural Biology Center (NYSBC) is designed to obtain molecular-level information on biomolecules that will help develop new diagnostic tools and treatments for disease. Instigated by the New York Partnership, the center has raised over $48 million from biomedical research institutions, New York City, New York State, and the Federal government, including the National Institutes of Health, to build and operate this facility. The research center contains the most advanced cluster of nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometers (high-field research magnets) in the country, and the second largest in the world. These instruments use radio waves to study protein and DNA complexes in both solution and solid state. The NYSBC will soon also house highly advanced cryo-electron microscopes, which shoot electrons (rather than light) at frozen samples; this new methodology complements the information gained from nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Using these two technologies, scientists will be able to visualize the three-dimensional structure of individual molecules and, thereby, establish the mechanisms by which cells grow and develop and understand how errors in those mechanisms generate disease. Five faculty, twenty M.A. and Ph.D. students, and five post-doctoral students in the CUNY Ph.D. Programs in Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Physics are currently involved in this research.
Ruth E. Stark, Professor of Biochemistry, Chemistry, and Biology at The Graduate Center and the College of Staten Island, is a Principal Investigator of the NYSBC. The principal scientific liaisons to the Center from CUNY are, for nuclear magnetic resonance, Professor Stark, and, for cryo-electron microscopy, Marilyn Gunner, Associate Professor of Biochemistry, Biology, Chemistry and Physics at The Graduate Center and City College. Representing CUNY on the NYSBC's Board of Directors are Louise Mirrer, Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, CUNY, and Zeev Dagan, Provost, City College.
http://www.nysbc.org/