Internal Advisory Committee
Douglas Antczak, V.M.D., Ph.D., Dorothy Havemeyer McConville Professor of Equine Medicine, Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, and Director, the Baker Institute for Animal Health, College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University.
Dr. Antczak joined the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine in 1978. He has been Director of the prestigious Baker Institute for Animal Health since 1994 and a Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology since 1992. His research focuses on the biological interactions that take place between a mother and fetus during pregnancy, with particular emphasis on how the placenta and fetus avoid recognition and destruction by the maternal immune system. Undoubtedly, his lab has been at the forefront of such research over the past 20 years and the hallmark of their efforts has been in the utilization of state-of-the-art technologies. His genetic studies have been fundamental to the international collaboration of the Horse Genome Project. Dr. Antczak has published over 150 papers and has received many honors, including the Distinguished Veterinary Immunologist of the Year Award in 2000 from American Association of Veterinary Immunologists and the Lucien E. D. Gaudreau Award for Professional Excellence in 2003.
Robin Davisson, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Biomedical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine and Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Weill Cornell Medical College, Cornell University.
Dr. Davisson joined the Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine in 2006, after eight years on the faculty at the University of Iowa. Her research focuses on the basic mechanisms of function, control and signaling in the cardiovascular system in health and disease, with an emphasis on cutting-edge technologies that take advantage of the functional genomics offered by murine models for cardiovascular health. More recently she has established strong and highly informative mouse models for pre-eclampsia, the major cause of fetal and maternal mortality worldwide. She has published numerous original research and review articles and book chapters, and has been funded by competitive grants from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association and private industry. In addition, her research has earned multiple awards, including the Harry Goldblatt Award in Cardiovascular Research from the American Heart Association and the Henry Pickering Bowditch Award from the American Physiological Society. She has also won awards from the American Society of Hypertension, the International Society of Hypertension, and the International Congress of Physiological Sciences. Dr. Davisson has served on several editorial boards, as well as a number of Federal and Private grant review panels.
Zev Rosenwaks, M.D., Professor of Reproductive Medicine, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Director, The Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility, Weill Cornell Medical College, Cornell University.
Dr. Rosenwaks is a diplomate of the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology and received his subspecialty certification in Reproductive Endocrinology in 1981. He has been a Professor of Reproductive Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College and Director of the world renowned Center for Reproductive Medicine since 1988. He is a noted authority on reproductive endocrinology and infertility and one of the founding pioneers in the assisted reproductive technologies. He has contributed book chapters to over 50 textbooks on reproductive technologies and has published well over 300 papers in peer-reviewed journals. Throughout his career, Dr. Rosenwaks has been instrumental in developing new fertility-enhancing protocols and has emphasized the integration of basic research and clinical practice.
Mariana Wolfner, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University.
Dr. Wolfner joined the Cornell University faculty in 1974 and has been a prominent figure in the field of Drosophila genetics throughout this time. Her research is focused on understanding, at the molecular/gene level, the important reproductive processes that occur around the time when a sperm fertilizes an egg. Using the Drosophila model, the Wolfner laboratory studies the molecular signals that "activate" an oocyte to initiate embryo development and also the actions of seminal proteins that female flies receive from the males with which they mate. She has published over 90 papers in peer-reviewed journals and has served on a number of NIH study sections. She has been given numerous honors for her research endeavors, including a Career Advancement Award from the National Science Foundation, a Faculty Research Award from the American Cancer Society and a Stephen W. Weiss Presidential Fellows award from Cornell University.