Good day. It’s Wednesday. We’re meeting with the new president and CEO of a foundation that supports stem cell research. We’ll also get details on a $5 million fine in a New Jersey tax break scandal.
Jennifer Raab learned about the space launch while interviewing for a job at the New York Stem Cell Foundation, which unexpectedly became emotional.
Valentina Fossati, a scientist at the foundation, mentioned that the test tubes would be part of the payload on a private mission to the International Space Station. The test tubes would contain three-dimensional models of brain tissue that foundation scientists had made from stem cells. Fossati said scientists were hoping to find out if space was the place to study neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis.
Then Fossati said she had MS herself.
“It was very moving,” Raab said, “to realize that someone had turned their own challenges into working to solve a problem for the general population.”
Raab was hired as president and CEO of the foundation. The space mission was launched on its third day of work. The project, carried out in collaboration with other research institutions, will study the cells when they are returned to Earth. Researchers will look for changes caused by microgravity in space and whether these changes could be applied to work on diseases such as Parkinson’s or MS.
The work has taken Raab from the eastern 1960s, where she worked for 22 years as president of Hunter College, to the western 1950s, where several life sciences organizations have moved in search of space in large-footprint buildings that can house their laboratories.
“It’s no secret that there is a lot of empty space, given the change in work habits,” he said. “Laboratories are places where people need to be. Obviously, there are things that can be done virtually, but scientists love being in labs looking at their microscopes and working together. Of the many professions where people like to be present, this is one.”
The foundation was born out of frustration in the early 2000s: frustration that research into potential cures for type 1 diabetes was lagging behind. Susan Solomon, who had been a lawyer and management consultant, founded the organization with Mary Elizabeth Bunzel. Solomon’s teenage son had type 1 diabetes and she wanted to accelerate the work to make possible progress.
At the time, President George W. Bush had limited embryonic stem cell research using federal money in response to objections from social conservatives. Solomon, who died in 2022, wanted to fund the research with privately raised money. The foundation says it has invested more than $450 million in research in the 19 years since it began.
Raab, who retired from Hunter last summer, is not a scientist: She has a law degree from Harvard and a master’s degree in public affairs from Princeton.
She amassed a record as a fundraiser at Hunter, raising more than $531 million during her years there to increase student scholarships and endow faculty chairs, among other things. She also called science a “passion” and said Hunter had raised $65 million. for space in a Weill Cornell Medical College building.
But Raab’s management style was sometimes criticized at Hunter; In 2013, an assistant dean described “personal attacks and a culture of fear and mistrust.” The dean was leaving, as were three senior administrators.
And in January of last year, Hunter agreed to pay $200,000 and a former psychology professor agreed to pay $375,000 to settle a federal civil fraud case involving allegations that the professor, who was director of the Hunter Center for HIV Educational Studies, had misappropriated grant money for personal travel, according to the US attorney’s office. for the Southern District of New York.
Raab called one aspect of the foundation’s research “bio-tech,” which she said was not biotech. Tech-bio involves a partnership with Google to apply algorithms “to dig deeper and see what you can’t see with the eye” on a controlled sample of cells that had Parkinson’s disease, were healthy, and had developed a different variation of the illness. .
“It’s really about a better future,” he said.
Climate
Expect a cloudy day with temperatures in the 40s. At night the sky will be mostly cloudy and the temperature will be around 30 degrees.
ALTERNATE PARKING
Valid until February 9 (Lunar New Year’s Eve).
The latest news from New York
$5 million fine for tax breaks
Holtec International is a New Jersey-based energy company whose projects include the decommissioning of several nuclear power plants, including the Indian Point facility on the Hudson River north of New York City.
On Tuesday, Holtec agreed to pay a $5 million fine following a criminal investigation into tax breaks it had been granted. The fine, announced by the New Jersey attorney general’s office, allowed Holtec to avoid criminal prosecution.
George Norcross III, a powerful (and feared) Democrat in New Jersey, sits on Holtec’s board of directors. He has long played an influential role in New Jersey politics, although he has never held elected office. But his power has waned lately in the wake of embarrassing losses, including the defeat of Stephen Sweeney, who had been state Senate president, in 2021. Sweeney lost his seat to Edward Durr, a first-time truck driver. candidate.
The deal triggered criminal proceedings related to a 2018 request for $1 million in tax breaks that went to Holtec and a second company, Singh Real Estate Enterprises, that was linked to Holtec founder Krishna Singh.
“We are sending a clear message: No matter how big and powerful you are, if you lie to the state for financial gain, we will hold you accountable, period,” New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said in a statement.
Holtec, in a statement, denied “any misconduct.” Kelly Trice, president of a Holtec unit, called the dispute “unfortunate” and said the company wanted to “put it behind us and redouble our focus on the important clean energy work of our New Jersey employees.”
A Norcross spokesman had no comment on the $5 million fine, but noted that Norcross had never had a stake in Holtec and that the state had lost legal challenges after it attempted to withhold certain tax exemptions from Holtec.
Holtec received $260 million in tax credits in 2014 under a program that Gov. Philip Murphy, a Democrat, had criticized during his 2017 campaign. The investigation into the tax benefit package, implemented by Murphy’s predecessor, Chris Christie, a Republican, came to define Murphy’s first years in office.
METROPOLITAN newspaper
Slow start
Dear Diary:
I bought the book “Chemistry Lessons” and gave it to my daughter. A week later, she called me and we agreed to meet near her apartment on Second Avenue in the ’70s so she could give me the book.
As he handed it to me, he told me why he was returning it so soon.
“I just couldn’t get into it,” he said. “The start was too slow.”
