History & Introduction
The origin of the Department of Cell Biology starts at its establishment as a traditional Department of Anatomy when part of the Long Island College of Medicine. The department was transferred to the new Downstate Medical Center in central Brooklyn in the mid-50s under the aegis of the State University of New York. The first chairman, James B. Hamilton, assembled a group of young anatomists, biochemists, electron microscopists and neuroanatomists to staff its curriculum in classical gross, microscopic, developmental and neural anatomy. The diverse background and training of the faculty favored the formation of a thriving and well-funded research and graduate training program with an overall emphasis on aging and human genetics. The next chairman, Donald A. Fishman, recruited from the University of Chicago in the mid-70s, developed an EM facility and transformed the department into a Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology in keeping with the changes in teaching and research.
In the late 1980s Dr. M.A.Q. Siddiqui, an expert in biochemistry and the cellular and molecular biology of the cardiovascular system, was appointed department Chair and served until he retired in 2013. He recruited new faculty members with expertise in different aspects of organ development, particularly cardiovascular disease, and lipid and glucose metabolism. He oversaw the merger of Anatomy and Cell Biology with the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and the addition of some faculty from the Department of Biochemistry in 2010. These changes expanded the size and scope of the department to include researchers focused on molecular biology of protein synthesis and viral gene expression, the immune response and autoimmune disease, schistosomiasis, and cancer. Research expertise was later added in ear, eye, and skin development.
From 2017 to 2022, Dr. James Knowles, an internationally known leader in the genetics of psychiatric disorders, was recruited as department Chair and Deputy Director of the then newly founded Institute for Genomic Health. At that time, he brought in new researchers into Cell Biology and Psychiatry focused on human genetic variations that influence the risk for psychiatric disorders, and how these differences alter the brain and behavior.
The current chair, Dr. Christopher Roman, is an expert in the molecular and cellular biology and genetics of lymphocyte development and lupus autoimmunity. He was recruited to Downstate in 1998 by then chairman of Microbiology & Immunology Dr. William McAllister. Since then, his years of departmental, institutional, and curricular leadership roles have included first stepping into an interim Chair role after Dr. Siddiqui retired in 2013, and then serving with Dr. Knowles as his Vice Chair for Research until 2022. He has also served as interim Institutional Official and was past Chair of the Cancer Research Scientific Review Committee.
The Department presently occupies approximately 16,000 square feet of research and teaching space in the BSB building and an additional 2,000 square feet of research and office space in the Public Health Academic Building (PHAB). Departmental resources include shared instruments and equipment such as an Illumina NovaSeq 6000 Sequencing System, 10x Genomics Chromium Controller (for single-cell analysis), cluster computing, confocal and conventional fluorescence microscopy, flow cytometry and cell sorting, fluorescent gel imaging, and qPCR, in addition to many common instruments, equipment and facilities, such as scintillation counters, ultracentrifuges, spectrophotometers, biosafety hoods, autoclaves and a glassware washer, dark rooms, and cold and warm rooms.