Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Since its founding in 1890, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) scientists have shaped contemporary biomedical research and education with programs in cancer, neuroscience, plant biology, and quantitative biology.

The Starr Foundation has provided more than $32 million in grants to support CSHL’s initiatives.

Highlights:

• The Starr Center for Human Genetics, established in 2002, was the first genome center in the state of New York, and one of the first large-scale sites in the world to use “third generation” sequencing machines. These tools allow scientists to sequence longer fragments of DNA at much higher speeds. With Foundation support, CSHL scientists are unraveling the code underlying cancer and debilitating neurological disorders and have pioneered one of the most powerful and widely used methods for identifying human mutations.
• Additional funding of $15 million in 2005 supported cancer genome research at the Starr Center and the Starr Centennial Scholars in Human Cancer Genetics, enabling scientists from around the world to pursue research at CSHL’s School of Biological Sciences (formerly Watson School of Biological Sciences). Starr funds have supported such work as the development of diagnostic and prognostic indicators for cancer, the use of embryonic stem cells for therapeutic purposes, the detection of specific cancer types from routine blood tests, and new treatment for hepatitis C infection that stops the virus from replicating.
• The Quantitative Biology Initiative, funded in part by a $10 million Starr Foundation grant in 2008, established an entirely new program at CSHL for mathematicians, physicists, and computer scientists to mine data from human genetics studies. Research includes studies to determine which cancers will progress and thus require surgery; medication that may reverse symptoms of fragile X syndrome, the most common inherited form of intellectual disability; and insights into the genetic basis of schizophrenia and autism, including why autism affects four times more boys than girls.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory also participates in the Starr Cancer Consortium, a multi-institution collaboration aimed at transforming the understanding and treatment of cancer.