Page 20 - RFCUNY Annual Report 2016

Yoko Nomura

Professor, Psychology
Queens College

Professor Nomura began her career examining how
mechanisms of gene expression, known as epigenetics,
influence pre- and post-natal infant development. But in
the process of collecting pre-natal tissue samples for this
project, Superstorm Sandy hit. Nomura was distraught over
the stress many pregnant women experienced as a result of
the destruction of critical city infrastructure. She realized she
could help, in the long-term, by incorporating the disaster
into her study as a measure of how stress influences these
epigenetic mechanisms. The idea was further expanded
into her five-year $3.5 million NIMH award, The Infants of
Superstorm Sandy: The Epigenetic and Developmental
Impact of Natural Disaster. By identifying how stress and the
environment affect changes in the expression of the genome
gene expression in the child and thus their development,
doctors could preemptively treat potential diseases or
impairments. “There is an epigenetic factor in development,
but how does the environment influence this on the molec-
ular level? Knowing this will make it easier to intervene and
treat for developmental problems earlier.”

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