Chapman-Perelman Associate Professor
Head of Laboratory of Metabolic Regulation and Genetics
Kıvanç received his undergraduate degree in Molecular Genetics from Bilkent University in Turkey in 2004 and his Ph.D. from the Rockefeller University in 2009, where he studied molecular genetics of obesity in the laboratory of Jeffrey Friedman. In 2010, he joined the laboratory of David Sabatini at the Whitehead Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). There, he combined forward genetics and metabolomics approaches to understand how different cancer types rewire their metabolism to adapt nutrient deprived environments. He also used similar approaches to study how mitochondrial dysfunction influences cellular metabolism. In 2015, Kıvanç joined the Rockefeller faculty as an Assistant Professor. He is a recipient of Jane Coffin Childs Medical Fund Fellowship, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Special Fellow award, Margaret and Herman Sokol Award, NIH Career Transition Award, Irma Hirschl/Monique Weill-Caulier Trusts Award, Sidney Kimmel Cancer Foundation Scholar Award, March of Dimes Basil O'Connor Scholar Award, AACR NextGen award for Transformative Cancer Research, Searle Scholar Award, Pew-Stewart Scholar Award, NIH Director's New Innovator Award and Pershing Square Sohn Prize.
Staff
Lab Manager
MS, Bilkent University
Beste received her undergraduate degree in Molecular Biology and Genetics with a senior project on the effect of protein-protein and protein-RNA interactions in membraneless, micro-scale biomolecular condensates formed by LLPS at Gebze Technical University, Turkey. Then, she obtained her Master of Science degree from Bilkent University, Turkey where she worked on deciphering the role of purinergic signaling in colorectal cancer. She joined Birsoy Lab in 2021 as a lab manager.
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Research Assistant
Wesleyan University
Beste received her undergraduate degree in Molecular Biology and Genetics with a senior project on the effect of protein-protein and protein-RNA interactions in membraneless, micro-scale biomolecular condensates formed by LLPS at Gebze Technical University, Turkey. Then, she obtained her Master of Science degree from Bilkent University, Turkey where she worked on deciphering the role of purinergic signaling in colorectal cancer. She joined Birsoy Lab in 2021 as a lab manager.
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Michelle Wilson
Administrative Assistant
Michelle is an English major with a background in cultural studies, born in Costa Rica and raised in Texas. She specializes in organizational skills with the purpose to simplify the lives of others. Michelle loves warm weather, swimming in the ocean and watching movies with her family along with travel, yoga and holistic wellness.
Emilie Wang, Ph.D.
Grants Administrator
Emilie is a Canadian-New Yorker who holds a PhD in Microbiology & Immunology from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business. Prior to joining the Birsoy Lab in 2021, she worked for a tech startup focused on transforming care for cancer patients and abroad supporting lab aspects of HIV & TB projects for Médecins sans Frontières.
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Postdoctoral Associates
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NIH NIDDK K99 Postdoctoral Fellow
Ph.D, Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Tim received his undergraduate degree in Biology from Bucknell University in 2014. He then received his PhD at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 2020. As a NIH NCI Predoctoral Fellow during his PhD he studied the role of mitochondrial quality control in cancer under the mentorship Dr. Doris Germain. He joined the Birsoy lab as a postdoctoral fellow in 2020 with support from a Merck Postdoctoral Fellowship and a NIH NIDDK Postdoctoral Fellowship. His current work is focused on understanding the impact of cellular and organellar metabolite transport in health and diseas
Damon Runyon/ NCI K99 Postdoctoral Fellow
Ph.D, Vanderbilt University
Gokhan received his undergraduate and master's degrees in Molecular Biology and Genetics from Middle East Technical University in Turkey. Then, he moved to Vanderbilt University to get his PhD, studying protein trafficking pathways and genetic disease models in zebrafish. In 2019, he joined the Birsoy lab as a postdoctoral fellow. Gokhan is working to identify metabolic limitations of in vivo tumor growth combing organellar metabolomic approaches and functional CRISPR screens.
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Human Frontiers (HFSP) Postdoctoral Associate
Ph.D, National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing
Shanshan is interestedin how mitochondrial dysfunction affects cellular metabolic pathways using CRISPR-Cas9 based genetic screens.
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Graduate Fellows
Graduate Student
BS/MS Yale University
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MD PhD Student
BS, University of Utah
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William E. Ford Graduate Fellow
BS, Wesleyan University
Nicole received her BA in Biology at Wesleyan University in 2018, as well as her MA in 2019. Before coming to Rockefeller, she was a technician for two years at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center studying the genetic and epigenetic basis of myeloid malignancies in the lab of Dr. Ross Levine. She joined the Birsoy lab in 2022 and is currently studying the metabolic dependencies of cancer cells in different environments.
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Graduate Student
BS, Occidental College
Mark obtained his Bachelors in Arts degree from Occidental College where he researched novel neuroexcitatory cone snail peptides. He then obtained his Masters in Science from Brown University where he studied the interaction between Muscle-specific Kinase and BMP receptors. Mark is a joint graduate fellow with Dr. Richard Hite in the Structural Biology department at MSK. He is deeply interested studying transport mechanisms.
Graduate Student (Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds Fellow)
AB, Princeton University
Minors (certificates): Quantitative and Computational Biology (QCB), Engineering Biology, Applied and Computational Mathematics, Applications of Computing, Materials Science & Engineering, German Language and Culture.
Previous research experience: overflow metabolism in pre-diauxic yeasts
Current research Interests: computational approaches to characterize unknown functions of the metabolic genes
Hobbies: reading, cross-country skiing, chess, ice skating.
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BA, Hunter College
MD PhD Student
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