Wednesday, June 1st, 2011
The new building for the NYU Center for Genomics and Systems Biology (CGSB) was officially inaugurated on June 1, 2011. The new building for the NYU Center is a revolutionary, 62,000-square foot "hub of science" located at the heart of the Washington Square campus. Keeping its original Greenwich Village façade this advanced science building houses open and interconnected state-of-the-art “loft laboratories” for teams of more than 200 researchers, including professors, postdoctoral scientists, and students.
The building was officially opened by NYU President John Sexton, NYU Trustee Chair Martin Lipton, Biology Department Chair Gloria Coruzzi, and CGSB Co-directors Fabio Piano and Michael Purugganan. Present at the inauguration ceremony were members of NYU administration and trustees, generous donors to Center programs, executives of biotech industries, members of the press, federal, state and city government officials and faculty, students and staff of the NYU biology department.
The opening ceremony featured an inaugural lecture by Dr. Eric Green, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Green oversees the US federal government research efforts to study the human genome.
Fundamental research programs being carried out in the Center embrace the study of genomics and systems biology as the next frontier in the biological sciences. Working with life forms from all the major branches of the tree of life, scientists in the Center address how genomes encode regulatory genetic networks, how they respond to changes in the environment or during development, and how they evolve. These principles are being applied to global questions in human health, food sustainability, bioenergy and the environment.
Eric D. Green, M.D., Ph.D. became the third director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) in December 2009. Prior to this appointment, he was the Scientific Director of NHGRI, a position he has held since 2002. In addition, he serves as chief of the NHGRI Genome Technology Branch (since 1996) and director of the NIH Intramural Sequencing Center (NISC) (since 1997).
Honors given to Dr. Green include a Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (1989-1990), a Lucille P. Markey Scholar Award in Biomedical Science (1990-1994), induction into the American Society for Clinical Investigation (2002), the Lillian M. Gilbreth Lectureship for Young Engineers at the National Academy of Engineering (2001), an Alumni Achievement Award from Washington University School of Medicine (2005), and induction into the Americal Association of Physicians (in 2007). He is a Founding Editor of the journal Genome Research (1995-present) and a Series Editor of Genome Analysis: A Laboratory Manual (1994-1998), both published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. He is also Co-Editor of Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics (since 2005). Dr. Green has authored and co-authored over 240 scientific publications.