New York (January 31, 2025)—Reflecting the ongoing evolution of science toward interdisciplinary collaboration, Weill Cornell Medicine has created a new Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, combining expertise from its Departments of Biochemistry and of Physiology and Biophysics. Dr. Samara Reck-Peterson, a nationally renowned mechanistic cell biologist, has been recruited to lead the department, which marshals biochemists, biophysicists and experts in protein engineering and imaging to drive discoveries in the basic mechanisms of cell function, effective Aug. 1.
Dr. Reck-Peterson is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and is currently a professor in the Departments of Cellular and Molecular Medicine and Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of California San Diego. She is a leader in using cutting-edge technologies such as advanced light microscopy and cryo-electron microscopy to visualize protein dynamics and transport in cells, down to the atomic level.
Expanding access and use of such technologies, which are poised to have a transformative impact on scientists’ understanding of biological processes in health and disease at the molecular level, will be a priority for Dr. Reck-Peterson in her new role. This understanding is foundational for the development of new and improved therapies. Dr. Reck-Peterson also plans to recruit scientists developing these technologies and a new generation of investigators. She will also advance the institution’s already outstanding reputation in membrane biology, structural biology, mechanistic cell biology, metabolism, cellular neuroscience and neurodegeneration. And she will foster greater collaboration between investigators across Weill Cornell Medicine's academic departments, as well as colleagues at Cornell's Ithaca campus, helping them leverage technologies to determine the molecular basis of disease and develop therapeutics.
“The most powerful science comes from collaborations among experts in their field,” said Dr. Robert A. Harrington, the Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean of Weill Cornell Medicine. “As department chair, Dr. Reck-Peterson will bring her outstanding leadership, technical expertise and skill to foster multidisciplinary research across the institution and catalyze foundational discoveries into new and improved therapies. I can think of no better person to lead the new Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics and we are thrilled that she is joining Weill Cornell Medicine.”
“Biochemistry and biophysics exist along a continuum that helps us understand life and medicine at the level of chemistry,” Dr. Reck-Peterson said. “I’m honored to join the community of investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine, who are doing groundbreaking work at the boundary of fundamental and translational science. For example, this group already excels at visualizing medically important structures, and I’m excited to help propel that work even further through investing in technology and collaborations.”
Weill Cornell Medicine undertook a multiyear initiative to realign and optimize the organization of basic and translational science to facilitate interdisciplinary research and promote mentorship of faculty at all levels. This initiative recognized the key role of a new Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics to drive discoveries through optical imaging, structural biology and live cell imaging. These approaches permit biochemists and biophysicists to unlock how dysfunction in cell metabolism, protein trafficking, and organelle function contribute to human disease.
The new department will encompass approximately 20 primary faculty members from the current departments of Biochemistry as well as Physiology and Biophysics, with contributions from faculty in the Department of Anesthesiology. Its composition reflects the central role that biochemistry and biophysics together play in advancing our understanding of biomedicine at the molecular and chemical levels.
In addition to the interdisciplinary work within her own department, Dr. Reck-Peterson hopes to bring investigators together across departments and career stages, including faculty, students, postdoctoral fellows and staff, to spur new collaborations and innovation.
“One of my many goals as I walk into an already strong scientific community at Weill Cornell Medicine is to build on that community and host events that will foster increased collaborations, increased creativity and increased access to external funding,” she said. “We cannot predict how new ideas will be seeded, but we can maximize opportunities for that seeding to take place.”
Dr. Reck-Peterson noted that Weill Cornell Medicine’s commitment to mentorship, one of the things she has enjoyed most in her career, is one of the factors that attracted her to the role of chair.
“Taking on this new leadership role is an opportunity to extend my mentoring reach,” she said. “I feel I have a lot more to give in that area, and I am excited about recruiting junior faculty to this new department and fostering their scientific careers. I am also looking forward to creating mentoring programs for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and staff to support all trainees in achieving their career goals.”
About Dr. Samara Reck-Peterson
Dr. Reck-Peterson is a mechanistic cell biologist who has conducted groundbreaking work on a molecular machine called dynein, which moves cargo around cells on tracks called microtubules. Her work has helped explain the cause of a devastating neurodevelopmental disease called type-1 lissencephaly that causes severe developmental delays, intellectual disabilities, feeding difficulties and seizures. Many children affected by the disorder die before age 10. Her work has also led to breakthroughs in understanding the role of the gene leucine-rich repeat kinase two (LRRK2), which is often mutated in familial forms of Parkinson’s disease. These mutations in LRRK2, which is a kinase, increase its kinase activity. Increased LRRK2 kinase activity has also been observed in Parkinson’s disease patients who do not have mutations in LRRK2, making LRRK2 currently the most actionable therapeutic target for Parkinson’s disease.
“Our collaborative biochemical and biophysical work on LRRK2 led to the first visualization of this molecule in three dimensions, something scientists in both academia and industry had been trying to achieve for two decades,” she said. “This visualization has spurred our lab and others to develop new ways to target LRRK2 therapeutically and to understand and mitigate potential side effects of such therapies.”
Dr. Reck-Peterson has published more than 70 publications, many in high impact journals. Her work has been recognized with a 2008 NIH New Innovator Award and a 2016 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Simons Faculty Scholar Award. She became an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 2018 and will continue in that role while at Weill Cornell Medicine, helping further foster collaboration across institutions.
In addition to her award-winning work as a scientist, Dr. Reck-Peterson has a demonstrated track record of increasing access to and use of cutting-edge technologies like advanced light microscopy, cryo-electron microscopy and cryo-electron tomography. She established and served as faculty director of the Nikon Imaging Center at UC San Diego and helped establish the Goeddel Family Technology Sandbox. The use of such technology can help scientists visualize and understand, at the atomic level and in 4-dimensions (space + time), biological processes that contribute to disease. Understanding the exact configurations of proteins or disease-linked cellular interactions can also help scientists design new or improved drugs with fewer side effects by more precisely targeting a key receptor or protein. By building on Weill Cornell’s existing expertise in biochemistry, biophysics and imaging technology, Dr. Reck-Peterson hopes to catalyze foundational science that will lead to the development of new therapeutics at the institution.
Dr. Reck-Peterson earned her bachelor’s degree in biology in 1993 from Carleton College in Minnesota. She completed her doctoral degree in cell biology at Yale University in 2000 and conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Francisco from 2001 to 2007. She served as an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School in 2007, rising to an associate professor at Harvard before joining UC San Diego in 2015 as a professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine and the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology. She became a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator in 2018 while continuing in her role at UC San Diego. She has held several leadership roles in her career, including serving as the associate director of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences graduate program at Harvard and as a member of the board of trustees at UC San Diego.
Weill Cornell Medicine
Weill Cornell Medicine is committed to excellence in patient care, scientific discovery and the education of future physicians in New York City and around the world. The doctors and scientists of Weill Cornell Medicine—faculty from Weill Cornell Medical College, Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, and Weill Cornell Physician Organization—are engaged in world-class clinical care and cutting-edge research that connect patients to the latest treatment innovations and prevention strategies. Located in the heart of the Upper East Side’s scientific corridor, Weill Cornell Medicine’s powerful network of collaborators extends to its parent university Cornell University; to Qatar, where Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar offers a Cornell University medical degree; and to programs in Tanzania, Haiti, Brazil, Austria and Turkey. Weill Cornell Medicine faculty provide exemplary patient care at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian Westchester Behavioral Health Center, NewYork-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian Queens and NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital. Weill Cornell Medicine is also affiliated with Houston Methodist. For more information, visit weill.cornell.edu.