Cornell Reproductive Sciences Center

June 2026 Tegan Horan, a Research Associate in the Cohen lab, has published a new manuscript in the Oxford Academic’s Molecular Biology and Evolution journal that sheds new light on the process by which mammals complete chromosome exchanges. Per Tegan: "During the production of eggs and sperm, pairs of chromosomes exchange pieces of DNA [...]

May 2026 Dr. John Schimenti's lab has recently published a new research article in PLOS Genetics, "Chronic replication stress-mediated genomic instability disrupts placenta development in mice."  Through using mouse models with ongoing DNA replication stress, Schimenti lab researchers found that placental stem cells in their earliest stage lose the ability to self-renew, which results in [...]

May 2026 At a moment when reproductive health research faces both unprecedented scientific opportunity and growing uncertainty in funding, Cornell University hosted the 2026 Tri-State Symposium on Reproductive Sciences, bringing together researchers from across the Northeast to examine the biology of reproduction — from contraception and gamete development to pregnancy and lifelong health outcome…

April 2026 The Cornell Chronicle, Cornell University's biggest news platform, recently published a feature on a new publication in PNAS from Paula Cohen's lab. The research article, "Meiotic prophase I disruption as a strategy for nonhormonal male contraception using small-molecule inhibitor JQ1," demonstrates that JQ1, a small-molecule inhibitor, can act as a male contraceptive [...]

April 2026 The Cornell Reproductive Sciences Center is thrilled to extend its congratulations to Analise Coon (Das lab), Julia Picker (Kim lab), and Amanda Sun (Clark lab), three CoRe trainees who received very sought-after National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships! This highly competitive fellowship opportunity provides three years of fellowship stipend and two [...]

June 2025 Dr. Athena Ren, Assistant Professor of Reproductive Biology, was recently featured in the Cornell Chronicle for her lab's research into a new ovulation regulator. This exciting new finding, published in an article titled "Semaphorin 3E-Plexin-D1 Pathway Downstream of the Lutenizing Hormone Surge Regulates Ovulation, Granulosa Cell Lutenization, and Ovarian Angiogenesis in Mice" [...]

April 2025 Dr. Dave Lin, Associate Professor of Neurobiology, Coordinator of the CityU Hong Kong Joint PhD Program, and Director of Outreach Core for the Cornell Reproductive Sciences Center, recently made a generous donation from his CoRe outreach funds to Cornell University's 38th Expanding Your Horizons (EYH) Conference. The one-day event, which took place [...]

February 2025 The Ovarian Follicle Working Subgroup of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Ovarian Nomenclature Workshop,  a committee that includes CoRe's Dr. Marla Lujan (Associate Professor, Division of  Nutritional Sciences), has published a new report in Fertility and Sterility, titled "Classification system of human ovarian follicle morphology: recommendations of th…

October 2024 Dr. Alexander Nikitin's (Professor of Pathology, Department of Biomedical Sciences) laboratory published an article in Nature Communications earlier this month, co-first authored by Dr. Andrea Flesken-Nikitin (Assistant Research Professor) and graduate student Coulter Ralston. The article, titled "Pre-ciliated tubal epithelial cells are prone to initiating of high-grade serous ovaria…

August 2024 Dr. Mandi de Mestre's (Dorothy Havemeyer McConville Professor of Equine Medicine, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Baker Institute for Animal Health) laboratory published a research article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) this month. The work, co-led by Postdoc Shebl Salem and laboratory manager Don Miller, along with previous [...]

July 2024 Last week, the Society for the Study of Reproduction hosted their 57th annual meeting in Dublin, Ireland, titled "Evolution of Reproductive Sciences - Where Should We Go?" This week-long conference hosted speakers and visitors from countries across the globe, including a number of faculty and trainees from the Cornell Reproductive Sciences Center. [...]

March 2024 Drs. Paula Cohen (Professor of Genetics, Biomedical Sciences; Director, Cornell Reproductive Sciences Center; Associate Vice Provost for Research and Innovation; Associate Dean for Research, College of Veterinary Medicine) and Marcus Smolka (Professor, Molecular Biology and Genetics; Interim Director, Weill Institute of Cell and Molecular Biology) were profiled in the Cornell Chronicle…

February 2024 Nora Brown, PhD (a postdoc member of the Yamashita Lab at the Whitehead Institute and former PhD at Cornell's Wolfner Lab) and Mariana Wolfner, PhD  (Distinguished Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow at Cornell University) published a research article, "The seminal odorant binding protein Obp56g is required [...]