They and 12 full-time employees eager to escape their small and crowded space in New York moved into a striking new 4,700 sq. ft. laboratory they designed themselves at 19 Bradhurst Avenue in Hawthorne, just off the College’s Valhalla campus. At the second floor entrance is the distinguished appellation “Molecular Immunogenetics Laboratory of the Department of Medicine,” where Dr. Yang, professor of medicine and principal investigator, is director, and Dr. Cereb, assistant professor, is associate director.

Credit for Dr. Yang’s recruitment belongs to William H. Frishman, M.D., professor and chairman of the Department of Medicine, and Frank N. Traganos, Ph.D., professor of medicine and associate director of the Brander Cancer Research Institute adjacent to the new lab. Much of it also goes to Dr. Yang, who after 23 years at Sloan-Kettering, had become restless: “I wanted to be my own boss. I grew up there, and I wanted the freedom and support to do what I wanted to do, to expand my lab and research activities and Sloan-Kettering wouldn’t support that level of space or freedom…I was looking around in Westchester and found Dr. Frishman. He is the man I want for my mentor.”

His respect for her is palpable when he calls Dr. Yang “an international leader in molecular immunogenetics. Her work complements that of the cancer research institute in the Department of Medicine. An academic department of medicine needs to be in the forefront of research, medical education and clinical practice.

“Dr. Yang is also developing collaborations with other faculty in the basic and clinical sciences as she looks to identify genetic mutations in various disease states that cross all medical disciplines. She represents the type of individual we want to recruit here, a person of stature who is doing cutting-edge research. We are happy to have her and her distinguished research group as faculty members of New York Medical College.”

Dr. Yang’s research career began in 1968 with graduate work in psychology. It was a mistake. “I immediately realized it was not my field and switched to chemistry,” she says. After earning a master’s degree in organic chemistry at Minnesota State University, she joined the laboratory of Robert Good, now called one of the fathers of immunology. He was about to relocate to New York City to become the president of Sloan- Kettering. As a research assistant in his lab, Dr. Yang contributed a background of pure chemistry. She later finished her education with a Ph.D. from New York University.

Dr. Cereb started his research career at Georgetown University after arriving in the U.S. in 1986. He completed a residency in pediatrics at SUNY-Brooklyn, and did a fellowship in hematology-oncology at Sloan-Kettering. It was actually during his residency that he contacted Dr. Yang after having read her New England Journal article. “I arranged to do the research part of my fellowship in her lab,” he says. “It was the most important streak of luck in my career. Since 1991 our minds and energies have acted synergistically, bringing further breakthroughs and contributions to the field of human immunogenetics. I hope that in my new role, and in the more supportive environment at the College, to be even more productive than before.”

When Dr. Yang came to the College she was not empty-handed. Recipient of a $3.5 million grant from the National Marrow Donor Program-a non-profit organization supported by the federal Office of Naval Research-she oversees an automated laboratory that is also among the largest HLA molecular typing centers in the nation. “Only special labs can do this typing,” says Dr. Yang. “We are fast and accurate.” The 1,500 typings each week include those for bone marrow transplants performed at Westchester Medical Center, Dr. Cereb says.

“HLA is pretty much set and now other genetic systems and mutations that cause disease will be discovered. We will continue our basic research to further understand the immune system, but also to apply the techniques of HLA typing to the diagnosis of other diseases. For instance, someone will publish an asthma marker, and we can then look for new mutations,” Dr. Yang says, being a predator of sorts who does not initially look for genes. The effort to target a disease is being organized by Dr. Cereb, who is “considering a number of possibilities-cystic fibrosis, asthma and some other common ailments, along with genetic polymorphisms affecting natural killer (NK) cells, and T-cells that may relate to the response to organ and tissue transplants, and viral and tumor immunity.”

“Everything is going to come down to a genetic event in the end,” predicts Dr. Yang. And to be ready, since matching antigens drain even a huge pool, the National Marrow Donor Program will have to keep searching for donors-despite having 3 million people already on line to offer their life-saving marrow.