February 2022

Researchers from the Environmental Sciences Initiative are turning to outer space to help save eastern hemlock trees in the Adirondacks. The trees are being attacked by the hemlock woolly adelgid, an aphid-like insect that feeds on the trees’ needles. This invasive bug has the potential to change the entire landscape around the Adirondacks’ Lake George region and destroy the forest, which is a major economic driver in the area. “There is really no tree species that is capable of filling the niche that hemlocks currently occupy,” says Professor Andrew Reinmann, a member of the CUNY ASRC’s Environmental Sciences Initiative who has long studied forests in this region and is leading the work.

Using 30 years of satellite imagery, the researchers can go back in time and understand changes in land cover, distribution, and forest configuration. In addition to saving the area’s eastern hemlocks, the team is also working to provide a foundation for freely available remote sensing tools. “We want to figure out an approach that can transcend the invisible divide between the academic community and the land manager, conservation biologists, and practitioner communities by creating a product that is easy for all of them to use and share,” says Reinmann.

The Community Sensor Lab is an educational outreach program launched by the CUNY ASRC that places the power of do-it-yourself environmental sensing technology in the hands of youth and community members and empowers them to collect and use data for local environmental advocacy.

Last year, the Community Sensor Lab worked with CUNY undergraduates and New York City high school students to assemble 15 environmental sensors, which they then used to complete air-quality and flood research in their communities, including Red Hook, Far Rockaway, and Harlem. This year, with your help, the lab will develop a new suite of soil sensors, create an open-access data portal, and expand to work with more New York City neighborhoods and students.

The CUNY ASRC Nanoscience Initiative is collaborating with Next Generation Quantum Corp, a Brooklyn-based New York City College of Technology spin-off company, to develop the first product prototype for the company’s new quantum computing technology. Created by the company’s CEO Shaina Raklyar and Chief Technology Officer German Kolmakov, the technology unlocks the power of industrial-scale quantum computing. Raklya and Kolmakov are also receiving support from the CUNY ASRC Sensor CAT program, which will enable them to further develop their potentially groundbreaking advance by creating components for the protype at the CUNY ASRC’s Nanofabrication Facility.

Kevin Gardner, founding director of the CUNY ASRC’s Structural Biology Initiative and Einstein Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at The City College of New York and the Graduate Center, is part of a multi-institutional team that helped develop a cancer treatment drug called belzutifan, which was recently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Belzutifan is approved to treat kidney, central nervous system, and pancreatic cancers in patients with von Hippel-Lindau disease (VHL) who do not require immediate surgery. VHL is a rare genetic disease that causes tumors to grow in different parts of the body, some benign and some cancerous. The drug works by targeting hypoxia-inducible factor 2-alpha (HIF-2α), a protein involved in the development of certain cancers. Gardner and his research group at the CUNY ASRC are now investigating the behavior of two other proteins — HIF-1 and HIF-3 — that the belzutifan does not target. “We’re continuing the basic science that will not only let us understand how the HIFs work but how they may be druggable,” explains Gardner.

Congratulations to Professor Andrea Alù for being named the 2021 Blavatnik National Awards Laureate in Physical Sciences and Engineering! Alù, founding director of the Photonics Initiative at the CUNY ASRC and Einstein Professor of Physics at the Graduate Center, was recognized for his challenges to the boundaries of materials science and physics, which have brought about advances in electromagnetics, nano-optics, and acoustics.

The Blavatnik National Awards, given annually by the Blavatnik Family Foundation and administered by the New York Academy of Sciences, honor early-career scientists and engineers who have made trailblazing discoveries in their fields. Alù and two other laureates were selected from 298 nominations by 157 institutions across the U.S. Each laureate receives $250,000, the world’s largest unrestricted prize for early-career scientists and engineers.

Researchers at the CUNY ASRC’s Epigenetics Core Facility, operated by the Neuroscience Initiative recently employed the lab’s cutting-edge technology to identify the specific epigenetic variations that contribute to multiple sclerosis susceptibility. The facility, which recently welcomed two new staff members, provides a variety of research resources and services, including flow cytometry, quantitative gene expression by real-time PCR and in situ hybridization, and next-generation sequencing for bulk and single-cell transcriptomics and epigenetics.

Epigenetics refers to inheritable changes in gene expression that are independent of changes in DNA sequences. In recent years, the term has been broadened to encompass all processes that control gene expression beyond DNA sequence changes. Changes to epigenetic processes are associated with an array of diseases and disorders, including cancer; neurological and psychiatric disorders; and respiratory, cardiovascular, and autoimmune diseases.

For consultation on experimental design and instrument capabilities, please contact Epigenetics Core Facility Director Jia Liu at jliu1@gc.cuny.edu.