Dr. Rebecca Delker is an Industry Assistant Professor of Biology within the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department at NYU Tandon. She received a BS degree in Biochemistry from The University of California, San Diego in 2007 and a PhD in Molecular Immunology at Rockefeller University in New York City in 2014. After receiving her PhD, she further pursued postdoctoral research at Columbia University in the Department of Biochemistry. In addition to research, Rebecca has previously taught as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology at Manhattan College and as Faculty within the Citizen Science Program at Bard College.
The questions Rebecca has asked throughout her research endeavors have focused on the regulation of our cell’s code: the genome. During her PhD, she investigated the regulation of a key enzyme (AID) expressed in antibody-producing B cells that initiates two dramatic genome-editing events, risking disruption of the genomic code to produce more varied and higher-affinity antibodies. Her postdoctoral research looked at the regulation of the genome from a different angle, studying the control of gene expression in a developing organism (D. melanogaster). Like the antibody improving enzyme in B-Cells, this process must be tightly controlled both temporally and spatially to ensure the induction of proper cell-fate.
As a professor, Rebecca likes to emphasize the process of science underpinning its findings. To this end, she focuses on the techniques used in contemporary biology labs and digs into the literature in class discussion to uncover the path of logic from data to knowledge.
Rebecca currently teaches Advanced Molecular Biology, Advanced Cell Biology, Biochemistry I, Biochemistry II, Genetics and Genomics, and Introduction to Biomolecular Science.
