Hughes Mentor:  Margaret Bynoe

Department: Microbiology and Immunology

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Dr. Margaret Bynoe

Trying to find my way through the maze that is Cornell’s vet school, I knew that I would be late for my interview with Dr. Margaret Bynoe, assistant professor of immunology. Seeking out the help of a librarian, a coffee barista, and a random person who seemed to know her way around the school (but didn’t!) aided me not in the least to find Dr. Bynoe’s obscurely numbered C5 149 office. In the end, I couldn’t help but arrive to our meeting about 10 minutes late. However, my tardiness was not reproached, for Dr. Bynoe turned out to be a kind, warm-hearted, understanding individual.

As I soon came to learn, Dr. Bynoe originally hails from the Bahamas, but she considers herself a true native of Brooklyn. She studied as an undergraduate at Long Island University and then went on to receive her Ph.D. at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Immunology. When she first told me that she obtained her Ph.D. at a medical school, I was a little surprised—not too many people do that. “Why did you choose Albert Einstein and how has it affected your research?” I quickly prompted her. She replied that she knew that she wanted to study immunology and that Einstein had a great program. The research environment was really different in a medical school, she said, in that the goals of the projects were directed in terms of how they would most benefit the patient. Today, Dr. Bynoe studies auto-immune disorders, particularly multiple sclerosis (MS). In MS, the myelin sheath that surrounds neurons and aids in signal transduction gradually becomes destroyed by the body’s own immune system. This destruction can lead to symptoms such as paralysis, blindness, severe fatigue, and cognitive impairment—to name just a few. In her research, Dr. Bynoe is interested in learning whether MS can be treated by “re-teaching” the immune system to distinguish self from non-self. She performs this teaching by using the mouse model system and first introducing the self-antigen the body is targeting on a skin patch before the disorder has set in. This way, the body first encounters the antigen in a different area (i.e. the skin) that is not affected by the disorder and knows that the antigen is self, not foreign. Dr. Bynoe’s time at Albert Einstein influenced her to take this non-invasive, patient-friendly approach to treating MS. She hopes to one day perform trials on humans.

Outside the office, Dr. Bynoe was a little more evasive on her activities. When asked what she does in her time off, she responded, “I bang my head against the wall and scream.” Dr. Bynoe is relatively new to Cornell, and a great deal of her time is consumed in trying to recruit researchers and money to her lab—a very frustrating and long process. However, she does not believe in the “all work and no play” mentality. On the weekends, Dr. Bynoe escapes to her beloved New York City. And as she claims, “What happens in The City, stays in The City.”

A Day in the Life of a Bynoe Lab Undergrad

The Bynoe lab can be found on the 5th floor of the Veterinary Medical Center as part of the Microbiology and Immunology Dept. While the lab works on many different aspects of autoimmune disease, all projects are brought together by the overarching aim of identifying the cellular mechanism of multiple sclerosis. Multiple sclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease of the central nervous system, whereby the bodies own T cells are able to infiltrate the nervous system and attack the myelin sheath of neurons.

Living only a few minutes away from the National Institutes of Health, I first became introduced to research as a high school student through special joint programs between the NIH and the county school system. From this first experience I decided I really liked research and wanted to continue in college. So, upon being accepted to Cornell, I started looking at the web pages of the faculty members doing research in the fields that interested me that most, that being infection and immunology. Finding nearly all of there work interesting, I sent e-mails to these professors asking if they were interested in taking on a freshman undergraduate sometime in the next year. While many said no, some, including Dr. Bynoe, said I should stop by and introduce myself. After a very informal interview, Dr. Bynoe said she would be happy to have me in her lab and starting in the spring semester I began working a fairly regular schedule.

Although I started out doing very simple things like making solutions and doing some of the more monotonous procedures for other people’s research, I have since been able to work on my own independent project. Currently, I am investigating the role of a particular cell surface receptor, Nrp1, in the progression of a mouse model of multiple sclerosis called experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). This receptor is interesting because it was originally identified in the nervous system but recent studies suggest that it may have immunosuppressive function. Having identified it’s presence on cells that protect against EAE development, we believe that Nrp1 may represent a potential target for future treatment of multiple sclerosis.

Since my project relies heavily on the use of transgenic mice, a major component of my work is genotyping, which involved running PCR reactions and electrophoresis to determine the genetic identity of the mouse, whether it be a mouse lacking a certain gene or possessing an extra one. Upon identifying the correct mice, I begin to use them in experiments by inducing EAE in them with a special injected regimen. Then everyday I evaluate the progression of the disease using a numerical scoring system to generate a disease curve. Once the mice reach the end of the experiment we isolate cells, protein, and RNA to use for various different experiments. The cells are used for flow cytometry which is a tool to indentify the presence of certain surface markers, such as Nrp1. In addition, cells may be grown in culture to be either transferred into immunodeficient mice, examined for proliferative ability, or for later isolation of protein and DNA in response to various treatments. Protein is analyzed by western blotting and ELISA to determine the concentration of proteins including Nrp1 and various other molecules associated with mediating its effects. Finally, RNA is used in a process called real time-PCR to determine the expression level of certain genes. In addition, mouse tissues, such as the brain are isolated on slides and stained using immunohistochemistry to look for the presence of pathogenic cells in EAE.

The Bynoe lab is a very relaxed lab with the caveat that one gets their work done and gets it done well. So long as this requirement is met, the lab is very flexible; those on a full time schedule come in anywhere between 8 and 10 in the morning. For students, almost any schedule can be accommodated. A typical day in the lab for me over the summer usually started with me coming in around 10am, of course after properly greeting the Vet School cat at the door. Usually I would spend a half hour or so reading papers and getting settled and then start working on experiments. Since the complexity of the experiments I do can range greatly, I can spend anywhere from one hour to a whole day doing actual bench work. If I am not doing bench work I am either doing housekeeping like stuffing pipette tips and making solutions, reading papers, or writing abstracts or part of manuscripts.