2015 ANNUAL REPORT Executive Summary 2015 ANNUAL REPORT Executive Summary

2015 ANNUAL REPORT Executive Summary 2015 ANNUAL REPORT Executive Summary CONTENTS 2 PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE 7 RESEARCH Research Activities, 8 Research Investigators, 9 Research Highlights, 10 15 EDUCATION Educational Activities, 16 Education Highlights, 17 Meetings & Courses Program, 22 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Conferences, 22 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Courses, 24 Cold Spring Harbor Asia Conferences, 25 Banbury Center Meetings, 26 Front cover Photograph by Derek Hayn/Centerbrook Watson School of Biological Sciences, 27 This report is written and produced by CSHL Press Publications, 28 the Department of Public Affairs of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. For more information, 29 FINANCIAL REPORTS please contact: Chief Operating Officer’s Report, 30 Public Affairs Financial Statements, 32 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Consolidated Balance Sheet, 32 One Bungtown Road Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724 Consolidated Statement of Activities, 33 Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows, 34 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) is a 516.367.8455 private, not-for-profit research and education [email protected] www.cshl.edu 35 INSTITUTIONAL ADVANCEMENT institution at the forefront of efforts in molecular Institutional Highlights, 36 biology and genetics to generate knowledge Vice President, Communications Dagnia Zeidlickis Honor Roll of Donors, 37 that will yield better diagnostics and treatments Community Support, 42 for cancer, neurological diseases, and other Managing Editors Phil Renna Board of Trustees, 43 major causes of human suffering. Peter Tarr, Ph.D. Laboratory Leadership, 44 PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE to “spread the grants as widely as possible,” a form of scientific socialism that does not bode well for the fu- ture of American science. At the same time, however, opportunities abound in many areas of science, includ- ing cancer, neuroscience, plant biology and quantitative biology—areas of focus at Cold Spring Harbor. Fortunately, with very strong support from our Board of Trustees and supporters of CSHL, we have seen a dramatic increase in our endowment. But this precious resource should support the core of what makes CSHL one of the leading research institutions in the world of basic discovery science. Having recognized this, it has been increasingly obvious that there are many instances in which we can add value to our science and translate Bruce Stillman, Ph.D. these discoveries they will make an impact in the clinic —and this is particularly the case for cancer. asic research is a central, defining activity of With this background, we took the initiative in 2015 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. It is the wellspring B of entering into a strategic affiliation with Northwell of both new knowledge and technological advances that Health, previously known as the North Shore-LIJ make new discoveries possible. Health System. It’s an alliance that I expect to be trans- This discovery science is expensive, and getting more formative. It will provide an unprecedented opportunity expensive every year. Inflation in the biomedical sector to add value to certain of our discoveries and multiply outpaces that of the broad US economy, mostly due to the impact of our research. the wide use of advanced tech- nologies that require expensive equipment or reagents. We also pay a premium for The urgency of speeding the translation of basic research into clinical advances is captured in this picture of pancreatic cancer the highly trained personnel patient Gail Poinelli conferring with CSHL’s Dr. David Tuveson (right) and Northwell Health’s Dr. Craig Devoe. The brave Ms. who are needed to offer ever Poinelli, who lost her battle with the illness in 2016, is one of over 40,000 Americans whose lives are claimed by pancreatic cancer annually. increasingly high-tech meth- ods to our faculty, postdoc- toral fellows and students. At The sweet spot of the affiliation is translational cancer- re innovative trials. Patients will be receiving advanced the same time, we continue search, which includes the development of new cancer di- treatments and diagnostics they would not otherwise be to see an erosion of the total agnostics and therapeutics and the training of a new gen- offered, and benefit from them years before they would amount of support any high- eration of research-capable cancer clinicians. Northwell be available to patients elsewhere. At the same time, ly meritorious scientist can It’s an alliance that I expect to be transformative. Health is one of the largest integrated health systems Northwell’s large patient intake provides our scientists obtain from federal sources in the nation. Its recently expanded Cancer Institute, with opportunities to perform cancer research using tu- with over 200 academic oncologists and clinicians, is mor samples from precisely defined subsets of patients. such as the National Institutes It will provide an unprecedented opportunity to part of a system of care encompassing 21 hospitals and As we move further into the era of targeted therapy, of Health and the National ...multiply the impact of our research. 400 outpatient physician practices throughout the New assembling appropriate patient cohorts becomes ever Science Foundation. At the York metropolitan area. Serving more than 8 million more critical if we want to speed the time it takes to NIH and NSF, policies imple- people, Northwell treats some 19,000 new cancer cases evaluate new treatments. mented in the last four years annually. This makes it one of the most important sites have deliberately limited the Clinician-scientists at Northwell have already begun of cancer treatment in the US. type and amount of funding teaming up with faculty at CSHL. Each team has a spe- that can be awarded to the As CEO Michael Dowling has noted, Northwell’s on- cific disease focus, or a focus within broad types of can- nation’s very best and most cologists will make CSHL’s most promising pre-clini- cer such as particular subtypes of breast or prostate can- productive scientists in order cal research available to cancer patients in the form of cer. Under the leadership of Dr. David Tuveson, deputy 2 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory 2015 Annual Report • Executive Summary 3 director of CSHL’s NCI-designated Cancer (RNAi) technology developed at CSHL by Gregory of aggressive forms of leukemia called acute myeloid Center and a talented clinician-scientist, Hannon and his team. The 2011 discovery, which Vakoc leukemia (AML). Vakoc discovered that a drug—de- Northwell-CSHL teams have begun to has carried forward, revealed a drug target—a protein veloped for another purpose by collaborating scientists gather periodically at our Banbury Center called BRD4—of unusual potential in the treatment at the Dana Farber Institute—hit the target, virtually to plan and assess their work. Our agree- eliminating AML in mouse models. These studies in- ment additionally supports the education duced a number of pharmaceutical and biotech compa- and training of Oncology Fellows. In this nies to initiate clinical trials that target AML, some of aspect of the alliance, the clinical training of which are now in Phase II, with positive results already oncologists in the Northwell Health system, reported from Phase I studies. This is precisely the kind in conjunction with the Hofstra University- of rapid translation of an important basic scientific re- Northwell Health School of Medicine, will sult that our new alliance with Northwell Health and include an elective period of laboratory its vast clinical system is designed to facilitate. It will research at CSHL. Via summer and full- enable us to pursue translational science with a vigor we year fellowships, a cadre of cancer doctors otherwise could not while keeping our basic discovery in training will engine primed. emerge to play Two of our faculty are now reaping the rewards of de- an active Christopher Vakoc (above) and colleagues in 2011 discovered a cades of meticulous basic research. Adrian Krainer’s re- powerful drug target called BRD4 for AML, an often deadly form search on RNA splicing—which began in the 1990s and of leukemia. Translational work has already led to clinical trials grows out of earlier Nobel Prize-winning work by Louise testing the effectiveness of a drug called JQ1 (red) that “hits” the Chow and Richard Roberts at CSHL and by Sue Berget target (left). and Phillip Sharp at MIT—has made possible the development of a drug, now in Phase III trials, for the serious productive CSHL basic scientist who had already pub- lished many papers helping to identify the molecular players involved the control of cell division, reported the discovery of yet another factor, which he called Cyclin D. This discovery coincided with the same find- ing by former CSHL Trustee Charles Scherr of St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, who went on to discover the protein kinase CDK4, which forms a complex with Cyclin D. It soon became clear from the work of Beach and Scherr role in translating the next wave of fundamental discov- that the Cyclin D-CDK4 complex is a critical node in eries about cancer into new diagnostics and therapies. the fundamental decision of whether a cell keeps divid- ing or rests from proliferation. Importantly, it became It’s reasonable to ask how the new alliance will change apparent that most cancer cells have mutations in this the way research is done at CSHL. I want to make clear control pathway, thereby pushing tumor cells on the that it in no way alters our core commitment to basic road to unchecked growth and aggressive cancer. research, which is unshakable. This collaboration adds to our capabilities in a manner illustrated by two con- What is poignant about the 2015 approval of Ibrance is the fact that it came a quarter-century after the fun- ...our commitment to basic research is unshakable. damental discoveries by Beach and Scherr. In the early 1990s, we simply did not know enough about cancer to convert their newly generated knowledge into an ef- trasting stories about basic research.

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