Christopher Mason, Ph.D.

Professor of Physiology and Biophysics

  • Director, WorldQuant Initiative for Quantitative Prediction and WorldQuant Foundation Research Scholar
  • Professor of Computational Genomics in Computational Biomedicine in the Institute for Computational Biomedicine
  • Professor of Neuroscience in the Brain and Mind Institute (secondary appointment)

646-962-5643

1305 York Avenue, Room Y-13.15
New York, NY 10021


Techniques

Research Areas


Research Summary:

We utilize computational and experimental methodologies to identify and characterize the essential genetic elements that guide the function of the human genome, with a particular emphasis on the elements that orchestrate the development of the human brain. Our lab creates detailed cell-specific molecular maps of genetic, epigenetic, transcriptional, and translational activity, creating a draft of the molecular recipe for the creation of the brain. We also develop methods to detect, catalog and functionally annotate variants in the genetic pathways that control developmental processes and how they are perturbed to create disease. We aim to understand of the functional elements of the human genome well enough to enable, eventually, the ability to repair, re-engineer, or fortify these genetic networks within human cells.

Recent Publications:

  1. Wu, J, Hu, Y, Perlin, MH, Danko, D, Lu, J, Oliveira, M et al.. Landscape of global urban environmental resistome and its association with local socioeconomic and medical status. Sci China Life Sci. 2024; :. doi: 10.1007/s11427-023-2504-1. PubMed PMID:38489008 .
  2. Zhan, Q, Solo-Gabriele, HM, Sharkey, ME, Amirali, A, Beaver, CC, Boone, MM et al.. Correlative analysis of wastewater trends with clinical cases and hospitalizations through five dominant variant waves of COVID-19. ACS ES T Water. 2023;3 (9):2849-2862. doi: 10.1021/acsestwater.3c00032. PubMed PMID:38487696 PubMed Central PMC10936583.
  3. Chan, ICC, Panchot, A, Schmidt, E, McNulty, S, Wiley, BJ, Liu, J et al.. ArCH: Improving the performance of clonal hematopoiesis variant calling and interpretation. Bioinformatics. 2024; :. doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btae121. PubMed PMID:38485690 .
  4. Deng, Q, Lakra, P, Gou, P, Yang, H, Meydan, C, Teater, M et al.. SMARCA4 is a haploinsufficient B cell lymphoma tumor suppressor that fine-tunes centrocyte cell fate decisions. Cancer Cell. 2024; :. doi: 10.1016/j.ccell.2024.02.011. PubMed PMID:38458188 .
  5. Barisic, D, Chin, CR, Meydan, C, Teater, M, Tsialta, I, Mlynarczyk, C et al.. ARID1A orchestrates SWI/SNF-mediated sequential binding of transcription factors with ARID1A loss driving pre-memory B cell fate and lymphomagenesis. Cancer Cell. 2024; :. doi: 10.1016/j.ccell.2024.02.010. PubMed PMID:38458187 .
  6. Mason, CK, Adie, SK, Shea, MJ, Konerman, MC, Thomas, MP, McSparron, JI et al.. Post-intensive cardiac care outpatient long-term outreach clinic (PICCOLO clinic): Defining health care needs and outcomes among coronary care unit survivors. Am Heart J Plus. 2024;38 :. doi: 10.1016/j.ahjo.2024.100363. PubMed PMID:38434252 PubMed Central PMC10906849.
  7. Amirali, A, Babler, KM, Sharkey, ME, Beaver, CC, Boone, MM, Comerford, S et al.. Wastewater based surveillance can be used to reduce clinical testing intensity on a university campus. Sci Total Environ. 2024;918 :170452. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.170452. PubMed PMID:38296085 PubMed Central PMC10923133.
  8. Babler, KM, Sharkey, ME, Amirali, A, Boone, MM, Comerford, S, Currall, BB et al.. Expanding a Wastewater-Based Surveillance Methodology for DNA Isolation from a Workflow Optimized for SARS-CoV-2 RNA Quantification. J Biomol Tech. 2023;34 (4):. doi: 10.7171/3fc1f5fe.dfa8d906. PubMed PMID:38268997 PubMed Central PMC10805363.
  9. Narayanan, SA, Jamison, DA Jr, Guarnieri, JW, Zaksas, V, Topper, M, Koutnik, AP et al.. A comprehensive SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 review, Part 2: host extracellular to systemic effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Eur J Hum Genet. 2024;32 (1):10-20. doi: 10.1038/s41431-023-01462-1. PubMed PMID:37938797 PubMed Central PMC10772081.
  10. Simpson, AC, Sengupta, P, Zhang, F, Hameed, A, Parker, CW, Singh, NK et al.. Phylogenomics, phenotypic, and functional traits of five novel (Earth-derived) bacterial species isolated from the International Space Station and their prevalence in metagenomes. Sci Rep. 2023;13 (1):19207. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-44172-w. PubMed PMID:37932283 PubMed Central PMC10628120.
  11. Tierney, BT, Kim, J, Overbey, EG, Ryon, KA, Foox, J, Sierra, M et al.. Viral activation and ecological restructuring characterize a microbiome axis of spaceflight-associated immune activation. Res Sq. 2023; :. doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-2493867/v1. PubMed PMID:37886447 PubMed Central PMC10602132.
  12. Merdler-Rabinowicz, R, Gorelik, D, Park, J, Meydan, C, Foox, J, Karmon, M et al.. Elevated A-to-I RNA editing in COVID-19 infected individuals. NAR Genom Bioinform. 2023;5 (4):lqad092. doi: 10.1093/nargab/lqad092. PubMed PMID:37859800 PubMed Central PMC10583280.
  13. Zhang, Y, Ruff, SE, Oskolkov, N, Tierney, BT, Ryon, K, Danko, D et al.. The microbial biodiversity at the archeological site of Tel Megiddo (Israel). Front Microbiol. 2023;14 :1253371. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1253371. PubMed PMID:37808297 PubMed Central PMC10559971.
  14. Long, ME, Koirala, S, Sloan, S, Brown-Burke, F, Weigel, C, Villagomez, L et al.. Resistance to PRMT5-targeted therapy in mantle cell lymphoma. Blood Adv. 2024;8 (1):150-163. doi: 10.1182/bloodadvances.2023010554. PubMed PMID:37782774 PubMed Central PMC10787272.
  15. Garcias-Bonet, N, Roik, A, Tierney, B, García, FC, Villela, HDM, Dungan, AM et al.. Horizon scanning the application of probiotics for wildlife. Trends Microbiol. 2024;32 (3):252-269. doi: 10.1016/j.tim.2023.08.012. PubMed PMID:37758552 .
  16. Wu, J, Qing, H, Ouyang, J, Zhou, J, Gao, Z, Mason, CE et al.. HiFun: homology independent protein function prediction by a novel protein-language self-attention model. Brief Bioinform. 2023;24 (5):. doi: 10.1093/bib/bbad311. PubMed PMID:37649370 .
  17. Babler, KM, Amirali, A, Sharkey, ME, Williams, SL, Boone, MM, Cosculluela, GA et al.. Comparison of Electronegative Filtration to Magnetic Bead-Based Concentration and V2G-qPCR to RT-qPCR for Quantifying Viral SARS-CoV-2 RNA from Wastewater. ACS ES T Water. 2022;2 (11):2004-2013. doi: 10.1021/acsestwater.2c00047. PubMed PMID:37601294 PubMed Central PMC10438908.
  18. Olarte-Castillo, XA, Licitra, BN, André, NM, Sierra, MA, Mason, CE, Goodman, LB et al.. Intra-host variation in the spike S1/S2 region of a feline coronavirus type-1 in a cat with persistent infection. bioRxiv. 2023; :. doi: 10.1101/2023.07.31.551356. PubMed PMID:37577589 PubMed Central PMC10418068.
  19. Leo, P, de Melo Texeira, M, Chander, AM, Singh, NK, Simpson, AC, Yurkov, A et al.. Genomic characterization and radiation tolerance of Naganishia kalamii sp. nov. and Cystobasidium onofrii sp. nov. from Mars 2020 mission assembly facilities. IMA Fungus. 2023;14 (1):15. doi: 10.1186/s43008-023-00119-4. PubMed PMID:37568226 PubMed Central PMC10422843.
  20. Guarnieri, JW, Dybas, JM, Fazelinia, H, Kim, MS, Frere, J, Zhang, Y et al.. Core mitochondrial genes are down-regulated during SARS-CoV-2 infection of rodent and human hosts. Sci Transl Med. 2023;15 (708):eabq1533. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.abq1533. PubMed PMID:37556555 .
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