Physiology and Biophysics

A person’s “bioenergetic age” — or how youthfully their cells generate energy — might be a key indicator of whether they’re at risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, new research from Weill Cornell Medicine shows.

A new study unveils a precise picture of how an ion channel found in most mammalian cells regulates its own function with a “ball-and-chain” channel-plugging mechanism. The findings could lead to new drugs that target these channels to treat disorders such as epilepsy and hypertension.

The newly configured department marshals biochemists, biophysicists and experts in protein engineering and imaging to drive discoveries in the basic mechanisms of cell function.

Drs. Steven Josefowicz, Ekta Khurana and Kristen Pleil were among 400 early-career scientists and engineers to receive the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.

A new study by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators has found that free fatty acids, including an omega-3 fatty acid called DHA, can reduce the amount of glutamate uptake by diminishing the sodium ion gradient that powers the transporters.

Working with week-old zebrafish larva, researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and colleagues decoded how the connections formed by a network of neurons in the brainstem guide the fishes’ gaze.

Weill Cornell Medicine researchers have determined the full-length structure of a blood pressure-regulating hormone receptor for the first time, uncovering how it functions, which may enable better drug targeting of the receptor for diseases like hypertension and heart failure.

Three teams led by Weill Cornell Medicine scientists have received awards from the Starr Cancer Consortium in its 17th and final annual grant competition

Scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine in Qatar (WCM-Q) have created an intricate molecular map of the human body and its complex physiological processes based on the analysis of thousands of molecules measured in blood, urine and saliva samples from 391 volunteers.

Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine have used artificial intelligence to identify drug targets based on mapping regulatory networks in patient tumors.

Dr. Ashley Laughney, an assistant professor of physiology and biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine, has won a 2024 Pershing Square Sohn Prize for Young Investigators in Cancer Research.

Molecular and physiological changes in space travelers reveal new targets for aerospace medicine and can guide new missions, according to the results of a massive international research endeavor by investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine, SpaceX, and other organizations.

Weill Cornell Medicine is part of an international team that has been awarded funding of up to $25 million over five years by Cancer Grand Challenges to study the causes of cancer inequities.

The molecular workings of a family of important but hard-to-study proteins called CLCs have been illuminated as never before in a study led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Dr. Chenxu Zhu, an assistant professor of physiology and biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine and a core faculty member of the New York Genome Center, has been awarded the National Institutes of Health Director’s New Innovator Award to fund an ambitious project to develop single-cell sequencing tools, known collectively as “multi-omics,” that will help track age-related changes in gene regulation programs, as well as cell decay, in brain cells from preclinical models. 

A study led by researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Weill Cornell Medicine discovered a new relationship between cancer cells and the immune system, and shows how cancer can selfishly hijack a normally helpful immune pathway.

An atlas that catalogues gene activity and the levels of small molecules called metabolites in tumor samples offers a new way of identifying the deep mechanisms of cancer, according to researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Two highly similar molecules with essential, but often contrasting, signaling roles in most life forms exert their distinct effects through subtle differences in their bindings to their signaling partners.

Dr. Ekta Khurana, an associate professor of physiology and biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine, has received a 3-year, $1.2 million grant from the United States Department of Defense to investigate how prostate cancer cells evolve to become resistant to hormone-blocking therapy. 

Two Weill Cornell Medicine faculty members, Dr. David Lyden and Dr. Harel Weinstein have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).