Hannah Cates
Assistant Professor
Biology, College of Arts and Sciences
Science Building 111
516.877.3885
hcates@adelphi.edu
Faculty Profiles
General Information
Diplomas/Degrees
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
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
Recent Courses
Recent Courses
Guided Research Epigenetics Of Addiction
Guided Research Epigenetics Of Drug Addiction
Guided Research Transcriptomics Of Drug Addiction
Guided Research: Capstone Experience Role Of Nrxns In Addiction
Guided Research: Capstone Experience T-Ucrs I Cocaine Addiction
Guided Research: Capstone Experience Transcriptomics In Addiction
Guided Research: Capstone Experience Transcriptomics Of Addiction
Human Anatomy And Physiology I ( Lab )
Introduction To Neurobiology
Thesis Research Noncoding Rna In Drug Addiction
Teaching Philosophy
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
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
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
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
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
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
University Service
Neuroscience Society of Adelphi, Faculty Advisor since 2020
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