Paula has been honored with the prestigious SSR Trainee Mentoring Award from the Society for the Study of Reproduction (SSR)...
The Cohen Lab is committed to ensuring that our lab and our community are places where individuals of all color, ethnicity, religion, gender, and sexual orientation are free to express themselves, to exist in a safe and nurturing environment, and to enjoy all the freedoms, liberties, and opportunities that life has to offer. We condemn the systemic racism that has resulted in the senseless and violent deaths of people such as Breonna Tayler, George Floyd, Aura Rosser, Stephon Clark, Riah Milton, Nina Pop, Tony McDade, Botham Jean, Philando Castille, Freddie Gray, Janisha Fonville, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and so many more. Lives full of promise, cut short by a culture of unrestrained police violence. Collectively, we pledge to fight injustice wherever we see it, to defend those who are unable to defend themselves, and to stand up to those who seek to deny basic human rights to all people.
Since 2000, the Cohen Lab has studied meiotic recombination and the events of prophase I in mammals, and has been funded by NIH throughout this time. Our studies focus on the class I and class II crossover pathways, and their regulatory control/interactions. For more information, see our research page.
Our studies focus on the DNA mismatch repair pathway, the MUS81-EME1 structure specific nuclease, and the Fanconi Anemia pathway. We study these pathways in the context of meiotic recombination as well as in the context of genome stability in the mammalian germ line. For more information, see our research page.
The Cohen Lab is interested in understanding the unique and complex gene regulatory environment that exists throughout spermatogeneis, as well as the complex role of non-coding RNAs in post-transcriptional regulation of the germ line. For more information, see our research page.
Studies in the lab are focused on identifying intervention points through spermatogenesis that could be targets of contraceptive drug targeting. Our goal is to provide cheap, safe, and reliable contraceptive options for men. These studies are funded by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. For more information, see our research page.
Paula has been honored with the prestigious SSR Trainee Mentoring Award from the Society for the Study of Reproduction (SSR)...
Saloni Dhopte, a graduate student in Genetics, Genomics, and Development (GGD), has joined both the Cohen and Danko Labs. Saloni will be studying the mechanisms...
Summer 2024 proved to be an exceptional conference season for the Cohen Lab, with members attending four prestigious conferences spanning the USA and Europe...
Recent studies emphasize the importance of ubiquitination and SUMOylation pathways in CO formation. E3 ligases RNF212 and HEI10 are indispensable for CO selection and maturation. Recently, genome-wide association studies have identified a novel E3 ligase, RNF212B...
Virtually all crossovers are made by the mismatch repair proteins, MSH4/MSH5 (MutSγ) and MLH1/MLH3 (MutLγ). However, the number of crossover intermediates (~140 MSH4 foci) far exceeds the final number of crossovers (24-26 in male mice). The mechanisms regulating the selection of which intermediates maturate into crossovers remains poorly understood...
Meiotic sex chromosome inactivation (MSCI) is a critical feature of meiotic prophase I progression in males. While the ATR kinase and its activator TOPBP1 are key drivers of MSCI within the specialized sex body (SB) domain of the nucleus, how they promote silencing remains unclear given their multifaceted meiotic functions....