Dear colleagues,

It’s been a month of both bitter cold and unseasonable warmth, cold rain and blustery sunshine. In other words, a typical February in New York.

The swings in weather parallel the roller coaster in NYC COVID case numbers, hospitalizations and deaths. Following the dramatic rise of Omicron cases to unprecedented numbers in December, cases began a rapid descent in early January, declining from a peak of 47,000 daily cases to only about 1,000 new cases per day now.  New hospitalizations peaked at twice the rate seen last winter and have also declined precipitously, with death rates following this path as well. At Rockefeller, cases shot up to a peak of 187 cases in a 14-day period ending in early January and are now down to only 7 in the last 14 days, 2 in the last week. 

With the declining rate of COVID transmission, and the high vaccination rate in our community, we have been able to relax some COVID policies, including reopening the gym and restarting indoor exercise classes; the Bass Dining Commons has resumed indoor seating; and the Faculty and Students Club has also reopened. Masks in most work areas are optional but remain required in other indoor spaces. In-person meetings and lectures with masks have been resumed and in-person attendance will be permitted for Rockefeller personnel at upcoming Peggy Rockefeller Concerts (the next performance is the Escher Quartet with Roman Rabinovich on March 2). Everyone is encouraged to keep a mask handy at all times and to wear it when appropriate. All other COVID policies remain in effect for now, including the restriction of campus access to Rockefeller personnel and visitors who have been approved via restart@rockefeller.edu, and weekly mandatory testing via the RUStrong program. In addition, those personnel who have been working remotely since mid-December are beginning to transition back to in-person work and will have returned to their previous on-campus or approved hybrid work schedules next week. I look forward to seeing everyone on campus again.

Booster shots remain strongly encouraged for everyone in the community, and data shows that they have been remarkably effective at reducing the likelihood of severe disease resulting from variants that have swept through the country thus far, including Omicron. 87% of the campus population has received a booster shot. OHS continues to offer weekly booster clinics for those who are at least five months past their initial vaccination. Pfizer shots are available Wednesdays between 2 and 4 p.m. and Moderna shots are available Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the OHS office. No appointment is necessary, and the clinics will continue at least through the first week of April.

Turning to other news, the open search for new faculty has hosted a dozen outstanding candidates, who have given seminars and chalk talks.  Candidates cut a wide swath through contemporary biomedical research and their work is inspiring.  Recruitment efforts are moving ahead, and I hope we will be welcoming new HOLs to Rockefeller this fall. We are indebted to Nat Heinz, Jill Benz, and the 29 members of the search committee who have been devoted to identifying outstanding candidates in this year’s search.

In other good news, I am pleased to report that the U.S. Green Building Council has certified the SNF-DR River Campus LEED Gold status for its environmental benefits. The LEED program, which recognizes building projects that minimize their emissions footprint and maximize sustainable features, awards certification at several levels, including Silver, Gold, and Platinum. The SNF-DR River Campus is Rockefeller's first laboratory building project to receive Gold certification (the CRC achieved Silver and the Welch Hall renovation, which is not a lab, received Gold). This is a remarkable feat for an urban lab building with very high ventilation requirements. Congratulations to Alex Kogan, George Candler, and everyone on the team involved in the planning, design, and execution of this project for their commitment to the environment and sustainability throughout the process.

Speaking of construction projects, those of you on campus may have noticed scaffolding being erected along the southern façade of the Bronk building. Work is in process to renovate three floors of Bronk in preparation for the launch of the Ford Center for Life Science Innovation, a joint initiative to provide incubator space for the development of new technology emerging from Rockefeller labs and those of MSKCC and Weill Cornell, as well as a new home for the Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute. Much of the demolition work has already been completed, but the removal of material was held up by the need to acquire city permits for sidewalk sheds to protect pedestrians. The renovations of floors 4, 5, and 6 are slated to be complete by the summer of 2023. This is an exciting project, catalyzed by generous support from trustees Lew Sanders, Bill Ford, and Russ Carson, and will be a terrific addition to campus.

In science news, Mike Rout and colleagues recently published an amazing paper in Cell showing how modifications of nuclear pore structures can expand and contract pore size, allowing structures of different sizes to enter and exit the nucleus, as well as supporting different rates of transport according to demand. The paper is a real tour de force. Congratulations!

Finally, as we consider all the legislation and discourse around the country seeking to limit conversations regarding race, racism, and racial equity, it is important that we pause to celebrate Black History Month. I’d like to note several extraordinary Black scientists who made important contributions in biology and medicine, despite facing racism and discrimination. It was not until after the Civil War that Edward Bouchet, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Yale, became the first Black person to obtain a Ph.D. in the U.S., earning his degree in Physics from Yale in 1876 for his research on refractive indices. Charles Henry Turner obtained his Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Chicago in 1907 and studied invertebrate behavior. He was the first to show that their behavior could be modified by experience, a discovery that has had enduring impact in promoting the understanding of learning and behavior in invertebrate models. Marie Daly, born in NYC, overcame hardship and many obstacles to become the first African American woman to receive a Ph.D. in chemistry, from Columbia University in 1947. She went on to a distinguished career that included seven years at Rockefeller, where she worked with Alfred Mirsky studying nuclear proteins, discovering the “lysine rich” histones, H1, H2a, and H2b, foundational work that set the stage for discovery of the nucleosome and David Allis’s research showing that chemical modification of histone proteins alters gene expression. She went on to make contributions to understanding cardiovascular disease at Columbia and Albert Einstein. Patricia Bath, also born in NYC, became an ophthalmologist and invented a method for laser ablation of cataracts which has restored the eyesight of countless patients. David Blackwell was a mathematician whose innovative work on game theory and Bayesian statistics led him to become the first African American inducted into the National Academy of Sciences in 1965. And Virginia Alexander was a pioneering physician who studied racism in the healthcare system and in the 1930’s documented dramatic health outcomes disparities, showing that Black people had double the rate of infant mortality and six-fold greater death from tuberculosis. These are all truly remarkable individuals whose accomplishments call on us to reflect on the many scientists and countless others in different pursuits who have been denied the opportunity to realize their potential owing to continuing inequality and discrimination, and to commit to promoting an open, diverse, and equitable community and society. For more information and resources, I’d like to point you to the Racial and Social Justice Resources collection curated by the Markus Library and RiSI. Further, as part of our community’s ongoing efforts to realize these goals, we recently took the concrete step of creating an office of DEI to help realize our mission of expanding the pathway to scientific innovation.

With spring just a few weeks off, I close on a note of optimism that we are making great progress toward normality in our daily lives. We have nonetheless seen a number of institutions, cities, and countries encounter dramatic surges in cases and hospitalizations by abandoning simple precautions of wearing good-quality masks in crowded indoor spaces. I urge you to continue to use good judgment-to reduce the risk of COVID transmission, and to stay safe, be well, and continue to take care of one another.

Sincerely,

Rick