Hannah Cates | Faculty Profiles | Adelphi University

Diplomas/Degrees

Ph.D. in Neuroscience with Distinction in Research, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (2016)

B.A. in Biology and Spanish, Austin College (2011)

Professional Experience

Assistant Professor of Biology, Adelphi University, 2019 – present

Adjunct Assistant Professor of Biology, Queens College, 2018 – 2019

Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai, 2017 – 2019

Postdoctoral Research Associate in Pharmacology, Weill Cornell Medicine, 2016 – 2017

Teaching Philosophy

The foundation of rigorous and enthusiastic scientific research begins in the classroom. This is where students learn to form hypotheses and think critically about the science behind the currently accepted facts in a given field. Encouraging students to think deeply about the research that led to scientific advancements instills curiosity about the “how” and “why” of science, rather than promoting rote memorization of previous findings. I want students to come away from my courses with a greater understanding of neuroscience and current methods of research, as well as an interest in the applicability of the information to daily life. The use of critical thinking and independent learning that is important for understanding neuroscience concepts will also improve performance in other disciplines. My goal is for students to develop learning methods that will help them in whatever paths their studies and career take.

Research Interests

Substance use disorders (SUDs) are passed down to offspring, yet to date only about half of the heritability can be explained by genetic differences. There are genome-wide association studies (GWAS), both completed and ongoing, in human cohorts of different SUDs (e.g., cocaine addiction; opioid addiction; alcoholism), but thus far there are not many promising genetic variants. This has led to a focus on epigenetic regulation as a possible heritable predictor of SUDs. There have been scores of studies over the past few decades that implicate altered chromatin modifications and transcriptional machinery (ChIP-sequencing) in the effects of SUDs on the transcriptional landscape (RNA-sequencing) in various reward-related brain regions. Recently, groups have embarked on large-scale chromatin conformation studies (4C; Hi-C) in the brain and are working to move into addiction cohorts with these methods. Additionally, as more people study noncoding RNAs, there has been a focus on the role of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in epigenetic regulation. Thus, chromatin isolation by RNA purification (ChIRP) has been performed on lncRNAs in mouse models of addiction. There are even more up and coming sequencing techniques, and with the advent of each new method, the field generates large quantities of data that is typically only analyzed once to answer a particular question.

The projects in my laboratory are:

1) Identifying genetic and epigenetic contributions to individual SUD predisposition through combinatorial analyses of existing large-scale sequencing datasets

2) Studying the mechanisms of lncRNA-mediated epigenetic changes in the response to drugs of abuse.

Other Work

Full bibliography available here

Selected Research Articles

Cates HM*, Lardner CK*, Bagot RC, Neve RL, Nestler EJ. (2019) Fosb Induction in Nucleus Accumbens by Cocaine is Regulated by E2F3a. eNeuro. 6(2).pii:ENEURO.0325-18.2019. PMID: 30963104

Cates HM, Bagot RC, Heller EA, Purushothaman I, Lardner CK, Walker DM, Peña CJ, Neve RL, Nestler EJ. (2019) A novel role for E2F3b in prefrontal cortex in regulating cocaine-action. Neuropsychopharmacology. 44(4):776-784. PMID: 30552390

Cates HM*, Li X*, Purushothaman I, Kennedy PJ, Nestler EJ, Shaham Y. (2018) Transcriptome-wide effects of long-term withdrawal from methamphetamine self-administration on gene expression in orbital frontal cortex and central amygdala. Neuropsychopharmacology. 43(12):2426-2434. PMID: 30072726

Walker DM*, Cates HM*, Loh Y-HE, Purushothaman I, Lardner CK, Godino A, Kronman HG, Rabkin J, Ramakrishnan A, Lorsch ZS, Mews P, Doyle MA, Feng J, Labonté B, Koo JW, Bagot RC, Calipari ES, Shen L, Nestler EJ. (2018) Cocaine self-administration alters transcriptome-wide responses in the brain’s reward circuitry. Biol Psychiatry. 84(12):867-880. PMID: 29861096

Cates HM, Heller EA, Lardner CK, Purushothaman I, Peña CJ, Walker DM, Cahill M, Neve RL, Shen L, Bagot RC, Nestler EJ. (2018) Transcription factor E2F3a in nucleus accumbens affects cocaine action via transcription and alternative splicing. Biol Psychiatry. 84(3):167-179. PMID: 29397901

Peña CJ, Kronman HG, Walker DM, Cates HM, Bagot RC, Purushothaman I, Issler O, Loh YHE, Leong T, Kiraly DD, Goodman E, Neve RL, Shen L, Nestler EJ. (2017) Early life stress confers lifelong stress susceptibility in mice via ventral tegmental area OTX2. Science. 356(6343):1185-1188. PMID: 28619944

Bagot RC*, Cates HM*, Purushothaman I, Vialou V, Heller EA, Yieh L, LaBonté B, Peña CJ, Shen L, Wittenberg GM, Nestler EJ. (2017) Ketamine and imipramine reverse transcriptional signatures of susceptibility and induce resilience-specific gene expression profiles. Biol Psychiatry. 81(4):285-295. PMID: 27569543

Bagot RC, Cates HM, Purushothaman I, Lorsch Z, Wang J, Huang X, Schlüter OM, Maze I, Walker DM, Peña CJ, Heller EA, Issler O, Wang M, Song WM, Stein JL, Liu XC, Stein JL, Doyle MA, Neve RL, Geschwind D, Dong Y, Shen L, Zhang B, Nestler EJ. (2017) Circuit-wide transcriptional profiling reveals opposing pre-frontal cortical and ventral-hippocampal gene co-expression networks regulating depression susceptibility. Neuron. 90(5):969-83. PMID: 27181059. Epub 2016 Jun 18.

Heller EA, Cates HM, Peña CJ, Sun H, Shao N, Feng J, Golden SA, Herman JP, Walsh JJ, Mazei-Robison M, Ferguson D, Knight S, Gerber MA, Nievera C, Han MH, Russo SJ, Tamminga CS, Neve RL, Shen L, Zhang HS, Zhang F, Nestler EJ. (2014) Locus-specific epigenetic remodeling controls addiction- and depression-related behaviors. Nat Neurosci. 17(12):1720-7. PMID: 25347353

Cates HM, Thibault M, Pfau M, Heller EA, Eagle A, Gajewski P, Bagot R, Colangelo C, Abbott T, Rudenko G, Neve RL, Nestler EJ, Robison AJ. (2014) Threonine 149 phosphorylation enhances ΔFosB transcriptional activity to control psychomotor responses to cocaine. J Neurosci. 20;34(34):11461-9. PMID: 25143625

Review Articles

Cates HM†, Benca C, de Guglielmo G, Schoenrock SA, Shu A, Kallupi M. NIDA Genomic Consortium White Paper: Coordinating efforts between human and animal addiction studies. (Genes, Brain and Behavior, In Press)

Walker DM, Cates HM, Heller EA, Nestler EJ. (2015) Regulation of chromatin states by drugs of abuse. Curr Opin Neurobiol.30:112-21. PMID: 25486626

*equal authorship †corresponding author

Honors and Accomplishments

Trainee Professional Development Award, Society for Neuroscience, 2018

Ziskind-Somerfeld Research Award, Society of Biological Psychiatry, 2018

Terry-Ann Krulwich Best Dissertation Award, Semifinalist, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, 2017

Hausfeld Award for Outstanding Graduate Student in Neuroscience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, 2014

Community Outreach

New York Academy of Sciences, Global STEM Alliance, Next Scholars Mentor, 2017

Graduate Women in Science, New York City Metro Chapter, President, 2016 – present

Professional Activities

National Institutes of Drug Abuse Genomics Consortium, Breakout Session Facilitator, 2018

Graduate Women in Science, NYC Metro Chapter, Member since 2015

Society for Neuroscience, Member since 2012

University Service

Neuroscience Society of Adelphi, Faculty Advisor since 2020