{"id":22460,"date":"2025-01-21T14:25:01","date_gmt":"2025-01-21T19:25:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/?p=22460"},"modified":"2025-01-21T15:02:58","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T20:02:58","slug":"marnie-halpern-reappointed-chair-of-the-department-of-molecular-and-systems-biology-at-dartmouths-geisel-school-of-medicine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/2025\/marnie-halpern-reappointed-chair-of-the-department-of-molecular-and-systems-biology-at-dartmouths-geisel-school-of-medicine\/","title":{"rendered":"Marnie Halpern Reappointed Chair of the Department of Molecular and Systems Biology at Dartmouth\u2019s Geisel School of Medicine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Geisel School of Medicine Dean Duane Compton, PhD, has announced that Marnie Halpern, PhD, has been reappointed to a second term as chair of the Department of Molecular and Systems Biology. Halpern has served as chair since 2020, and was named the Andrew Thomson, Jr. MD 1946 Professor at Geisel in 2021.<\/p>\n

\"Marnie<\/a>
Marnie Halpern, PhD<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so pleased to continue Marnie\u2019s leadership of the department,\u201d says Compton. \u201cShe\u2019s had a major impact in recruiting new faculty and in building cohesiveness in our community. I\u2019m excited to continue working with her to further build the scientific strength of the department.\u201d<\/p>\n

Halpern\u2019s lab uses zebrafish to study how the nervous system develops and controls behavior. She and her team focus their research on left-right differences in the brain\u2014to determine how they emerge, which genes control asymmetry, and how they impact function and behavior. Since the zebrafish\u2019s cell physiology is like that of humans, it serves as a valuable genetic model for studying a large number of diseases, from neurological disorders to cancer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy to see that the dean and the department have confidence in my leadership,\u201d says Halpern. \u201cI\u2019ve enjoyed working with the chairs in the other departments who were very helpful when I transitioned to Dartmouth in 2020. The five years have gone by quickly, full of challenging events like fires, floods, and the epidemic. But it\u2019s been a never boring and rewarding experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Halpern\u2019s overall goals in her second term as chair will include \u201cbuilding on the great science we have going on here, both in my lab and across the department,\u201d she says. \u201cOne of our strengths is that we have a very diverse department with successful scientists working on everything from Wnt signaling to Parkinson\u2019s disease to cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Zebrafish in Halpern's lab<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Originally from Canada, Halpern received her Bachelor\u2019s degree in biology from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and her Master\u2019s degree at McMaster University Medical Center, where she focused on Herpes virus gene regulation. She went on to Yale to obtain her PhD in biology, studying Drosophila (fruit fly) neuromuscular development, before going to the University of Oregon for her post-doctoral research on zebrafish. In 1994, she joined the staff of the Carnegie Institution for Science\u2019s Department of Embryology and John Hopkins University as an adjunct faculty member.<\/p>\n

Halpern has received many awards for her work, including being named a Pew Scholar in Biomedical Sciences and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She earned a prestigious Merit Award in 2017 from the NIH to support her research on left-right differences in the brain. Halpern has also served on scientific and professional society boards, including the Society for Developmental Biology and the Genetics Society of America. In 2023, she was elected to the Society for Developmental Biology Academy.<\/p>\n

Thinking back on her first term as chair, Halpern can point to several key accomplishments. \u201cWe\u2019ve recruited three excellent junior faculty since I arrived, and we have a search on right now for a fourth new faculty member,\u201d she says. \u201cThey\u2019re all doing well, and it\u2019s been really exciting to watch them establish their careers at Dartmouth.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m also proud of the connections we\u2019ve made with colleagues and departments across Dartmouth to advance our programs\u2014including working closely with Margaret Karagas (chair of Epidemiology) to put the NIH FIRST grant proposal together; as well as with Barbara Jobst (chair of Neurology) and other neuroscientists at Dartmouth to establish the new Integrative Neuroscience Graduate Program. And as a department, with the help of operations director Cheryl Bush and our great administrative team, we\u2019ve worked hard to develop a strong sense of community that spans our labs\u2019 locations in both Hanover and Lebanon.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\u201cOur department has a strong emphasis on genetic and genomic approaches to study fundamental mechanisms in development and disease. That\u2019s something that bridges us with lots of research areas across Dartmouth.\"<\/span><\/p>\n

- Marnie Halpern, PhD<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As she looks ahead, Halpern is excited about the opportunities for her department and the field of molecular and systems biology. \u201cThe fact that we can manipulate the genome using CRISPR technology has really changed the way we do experiments,\u201d she explains. \u201cOur department has a strong emphasis on genetic and genomic approaches to study fundamental mechanisms in development and disease. That\u2019s something that bridges us with lots of research areas across Dartmouth. I\u2019m really looking forward to seeing how these collaborations will play out in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Founded in 1797, the\u00a0Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth <\/strong>strives to improve the lives of the communities it serves through excellence in learning, discovery, and healing. The Geisel School of Medicine is renowned for its leadership in medical education, healthcare policy and delivery science, biomedical research, global health, and in creating innovations that improve lives worldwide. As one of America\u2019s leading medical schools, Dartmouth\u2019s Geisel School of Medicine is committed to training new generations of diverse leaders who will help solve our most vexing challenges in healthcare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dartmouth School of Medicine Dean Duane Compton, PhD, has announced that Marnie Halpern, PhD, has been reappointed to a second term as chair of the Department of Molecular and Systems Biology. Halpern has served as chair since 2020, and was named the Andrew Thomson, Jr. MD 1946 Professor at Geisel in 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":15026,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1199,1],"tags":[1293,1016],"class_list":["post-22460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-appointments","category-news","tag-department-of-molecular-and-systems-biology","tag-marnie-halpern","author-26"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/07\/MarnieHalpernNEW_featured.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4r3h1-5Qg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22460"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22466,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22460\/revisions\/22466"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}