For reproductive rights advocates, the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in June made the need for safe, reliable contraception all the more urgent. One of the most common forms of birth control is the oral contraceptive pill. Yet for all its popularity, the pill has not changed much since it was first introduced in the 1950s, according to Paula Cohen, professor of genetics at...

Krystyn J. Van Vliet, an internationally accomplished materials scientist and engineer now serving as associate provost and associate vice president for research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will join Cornell as vice president for research and innovation, the university announced Aug. 25. The Executive Committee of the Cornell Board of Trustees approved Van Vliet’s five-year...

As the pandemic pomp and COVID circumstances dissipate, Cornell’s business incubators officially graduated five startup companies – formally known as the Class of 2021 – on June 7 and helped to put them on the fleet highway to success. Lou Walcer, director of the Kevin M. McGovern Family Center for Venture Development in the Life Sciences, and Robert Scharf, director of the Praxis Center...

A new multi-institution, transdisciplinary center will develop systems for two-way communication with plants, allowing scientists to remotely sense a plant’s biology and its immediate ecosystem, in hopes of one day using the information to improve plant growth. The new Center for Research on Programmable Plant Systems (CROPPS), funded by a five-year, $25 million National Science Foundation...

When Lou Walcer ’74 stepped into the new business incubator space on Weill Hall’s fourth floor 10 years ago, he saw a blank canvas of opportunity. The Kevin M. McGovern ’70 Family Center for Venture Development in the Life Sciences was entirely painted white, with empty laboratory benches and shelving, blank walls, new office furniture and a few conference rooms. In time, it would become...