Emily Bernstein is a professor at

Mount Sinai School of Medicine The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS or Mount Sinai), formerly the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, is a private medical school in New York City. It is the academic teaching arm of the Mount Sinai Health System, which manages eigh ...

known for her research on

RNA interference RNA interference (RNAi) is a biological process in which RNA molecules are involved in sequence-specific suppression of gene expression by double-stranded RNA, through translational or transcriptional repression. Historically, RNAi was known by o ...

epigenetics In biology, epigenetics is the study of stable phenotypic changes (known as ''marks'') that do not involve alterations in the DNA sequence. The Greek prefix '' epi-'' ( "over, outside of, around") in ''epigenetics'' implies features that are "o ...

, and cancer, especially

melanoma Melanoma, also redundantly known as malignant melanoma, is a type of skin cancer that develops from the pigment-producing cells known as melanocytes. Melanomas typically occur in the skin, but may rarely occur in the mouth, intestines, or eye ( ...

Education and career

Bernstein received her B.S. from McGill University in 1998 and earned a Ph.D. from

Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system's ...

in 2003. Following her Ph.D. she was a postdoctoral researcher at

Rockefeller University The Rockefeller University is a private biomedical research and graduate-only university in New York City, New York. It focuses primarily on the biological and medical sciences and provides doctoral and postdoctoral education. It is classif ...

where she worked with David Altis. In 2008 she moved to Mount Sinai School of Medicine where, as of 2022, she is a professor in the department of oncology and dermatology.

Research

Bernstein is known for her research on RNA interference, epigenetics, and cell development. Her early research examined the enzyme

Dicer Dicer, also known as endoribonuclease Dicer or helicase with RNase motif, is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the gene. Being part of the RNase III family, Dicer cleaves double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) and pre-microRNA (pre-miRNA) into short d ...

, its role in cell development in mice, and

. While a postdoctoral researcher she examined linkages between non-coding RNA and chromatin and

DNA methylation DNA methylation is a biological process by which methyl groups are added to the DNA molecule. Methylation can change the activity of a DNA segment without changing the sequence. When located in a gene promoter, DNA methylation typically acts t ...

. Subsequently, she has worked on histones, gene silencing, and tumor cell development. In 2022 her team discovered alterations to a gene which can lead to melanoma.

Selected publications

* * * *

Awards and honors

In 2014 Bernstein received a young investigators award from the Pershing Square Foundation.

References

External links

* * , May 14, 2016 {{DEFAULTSORT:Bernstein, Emily Living people McGill University alumni Stony Brook University alumni Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai faculty Women medical researchers Cancer researchers Year of birth missing (living people)