Joanna Fowler
Professor

Joanna Fowler is a senior chemist at Brookhaven National Laboratory. She focuses on the biochemical effects of drugs, aging, and selected diseases on the brain. Fowler received a Jacob Javits Investigator Award in the Neurosciences, in 1986 and 1993; a Gustavus John Esselen Award for Chemistry in the Public Interest in 1988; Brookhaven Laboratory's R&D Award, in 1994; the Aebersold Award from the Society of Nuclear Medicine in 1997; and the Francis P. Garvan-John M. Olin Medal in 1998.

Ph.D. - University of Colorado, 1967

Phone: (631) 344-4365
Email: Fowler@bnl.gov
 

Gene R. Gindi
Associate Professor

Gene Gindi focuses his research interests on algorithm development for medical imaging, particularly the application of applied mathematical methods to image reconstruction and to quantitative metrics for image quality. Gindi has been working in the area of nuclear medicine, where probabilistic methods must be used to reconstruct the image from the quantum limited acquired data. His team's approach has been to use Bayesian methods able to accurately model the image formation process as well as to model assorted forms of prior information concerning the object to be reconstructed. Such prior information includes knowledge of piecewise smoothness of the object as well as side information that can be gleaned from MRIs of the same patient. Image quality involves the formulation of crisp mathematical criteria. A considerable effort in signal processing is required in formulating how noise and object variation affect these criteria. Gindi and his students have made recent progress in the formulation of methods to describe noise propagation in nonlinear reconstruction algorithms.

Ph.D. - University of Arizona, 1982

Phone: (631) 444-2539
Email: Gindi@clio.rad.sunysb.edu
 

James W. Goldfarb
Magnetic Resonance Imaging Scientist

Dr. Goldfarb’s research has focused on the application of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to the cardiovascular system, particularly in the areas of myocardial function and blood vessels. Cardiovascular disease is the major cause of death in industrialized nations. Magnetic resonance’s ability for both anatomic and physiological imaging has enormous clinical potential as a noninvasive alternative to conventional invasive procedures. However, significant hurdles remain for cardiovascular MRI. Dr. Goldfarb has been developing, refining and evaluating novel methods that allow improved temporal and spatial resolution, which is needed to transform proposed methods into reliable clinical protocols. Active areas of research include contrast-enhanced angiography, myocardial viability and the development of fast imaging techniques.

Ph.D. - Catholic University of Nijmegen, 2000

Phone: (516) 622-4536
Email: James.Goldfarb@chsli.org
 

Rita Goldstein
Assistant Scientist

My primary research interest lies in studying the interplay between the cognitive-emotional-behavioral and neurobiological changes that accompany crack/cocaine addiction with the goal of understanding the mechanisms that underlie the recurring nature of addiction to drugs (intoxication, withdrawal, craving, relapse).

In this study of the brain-behavior mechanisms that underlie drug addiction, I place a special emphasis on the role of the prefrontal cortex and the mesocortical and mesolimbic dopamine brain circuits in the impaired ability to change ongoing behavior (willed-behavior) in response to an emotionally salient feedback.

This intricate study of the interaction between brain and behavior incorporates the interrelated yet distinct research disciplines of neuroimaging, cognitive neuroscience, and neuropsychology. My research embraces this multidisciplinary approach, translating into patient-oriented clinical research settings the principles of non-invasive techniques to measure brain function such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission tomography (PET), event-related potential (ERP) recordings, and neuropsychology.

Ph.D. - University of Miami, FL, 1999

Phone: (631) 344-2657
Email: rgoldstein@bnl.gov
URL: http://www.bnl.gov/medical/Personel/Goldstein/Goldstein.htm
 

James F. Hainfeld

James Hainfeld develops organometallic cluster compounds to be used as high resolution molecular labels. These heavy metal clusters are covalently attached to peptides, antibodies, other proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates or lipids to map sites of macromolecules or complexes for visualization in the Scanning Transmission Electron Microscope (STEM). Such clusters have been useful in studying the proteasome, pyruvate dehydrogenase enzyme complex, actin filaments, viruses, blood clotting components, nuclear proteins, and other structures. Use of clusters in anomalous X-ray scattering or for isomorphous replacements is being investigated also. Gold, platinum, palladium, silver, iridium, and other metal clusters have been synthesized. Recently, gold clusters having Nickel-NTA for binding 6x-His tagged proteins, gold-liposomes, gold-cluster-ATP, and giant platinum clusters have been studied. Dr. Hainfeld also founded Nanoprobes, Inc., a bio-nanotechnology biotech company, and serves as the CEO. Nanoprobes researches and develops organometallic nanoparticles for use in biomedical and material science applications. for more information see: www.biology.bnl.gov/stem/stem.html and www.nanoprobes.com

Ph.D. - Chemistry (Biochemistry), University of Texas at Austin, 1974

Phone: (631) 344-3372 / 3367
Email: hainfeld@bnl.gov
URL: http://www.biology.bnl.gov/structure/hainfeld.html
 

Gregory J. Hannon
Howard Hughes Medical Institution Investigator

Dr. Hannon received a B.A. degree in biochemistry and a Ph.D. in molecular biology from Case Western Reserve University, where he trained in the laboratory of Tim Nilsen. From 1992 to 1995, he was a postdoctoral fellow of the Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Cancer Research Fund in the laboratory of David Beach, where he explored cell cycle regulation in mammalian cells.  Dr. Hannon, along with collaborators, was able to identify p21, p15 and p16.  His work and that of others has linked each of these to major tumor suppressor pathways, with the two latter genes being tumor suppressors in their own right and p21 being a major effector of the p53 tumor suppressor.  After becoming an Assistant Professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 1996 and a Pew Scholar in Biomedical Sciences in 1997, in 2000, he began to make seminal observations in the emerging field of RNA interference. His laboratory identified the effector complex of RNAi, which is called RISC, and showed that it contained small RNAs, now known as siRNAs, that were similar in size to those originally observed by David Baulcombe in his study of plants that were silencing transgenes by co-suppression.  The origin of such small RNAs was revealed with his discovery of the Dicer enzyme; an RNAseIII family member that cleaves dsRNAs into discretely sized small RNAs that enter RISC. In 2002 Dr. Hannon accepted a position as Professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory where he continued his studies to reveal that endogenous non-coding RNAs, then known as small temporal RNAs and now as microRNAs, enter the RNAi pathway through Dicer and direct RISC to regulate the expression of endogenous protein coding genes.  In recognition of his research, Dr. Hannon was appointed to the Faculty of 1000, received the U.S. Army Breast Cancer Research Program’s Innovator Award and the American Association for Cancer Research’s Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cancer Research. He assumed his current position in 2005 and continues to explore the mechanisms and regulation of RNA interference as well as its applications to cancer research.

Ph.D. - Case Western Reserve University

Donald Harrington
Professor

In 1991, Donald Harrington joined Stony Brook's Department of Radiology as a professor and University Hospital as radiologist-in-chief. Previously, he had taught at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School. Harrington's major research interests include Magnetic Resonance Imaging in medicine; telecommunications of imaging and data for patient care and medical teaching; and medical image processing. He has published his findings in over 100 journals, including Radiology, the American Journal of Cardiology, the Johns Hopkins Medical Journal, the Annals of Thoracic Surgery, Surgery, Applied Radiology, and many others. He is also an associate editor of Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology and a reviewer for the American Journal of Roentgenology.

M.D., Ph.D. - Marquette University School of Medicine, Miwaukee, Wisconsin, 1966

Phone: (631) 444-2480
Email: Donald.Harrington@sunysb.edu
 

Benjamin Hsiao
Professor

I am interested in understanding the structural and morphological development and manipulation of complex polymer systems during preparation and processing in real time. The focus of my research projects is the design, preparation, characterization and application of nanostructured soft condensed materials, such as fibers (one-dimensional orientation), films (two-dimensional orientation) and bulk material systems (three-dimensional orientation), through precise control of molecular architecture and physical interactions including crystallization, molecular level mixing, deformation and flow. My particular interests in biomedical applications include the use nanostructured biodgredation materials for drug release and tissue engineering.

Phone: (631) 632-7793
Email: bhsiao@notes.cc.sunysb.edu
URL: http://www.bnl.gov/nsls/x27c/hsiao.htm