Just South of the extremely public and street-oriented Weill Cornell Medical Center, Rockefeller University seems to hide away from everyone, aloof and in its own world...

Occasionally I used to read reports of Research here, but in the last couple of years not so much...

But I am sure a lot is going on here anyway...let me see what I can find..

The Rockefeller University is an American private university located in New York City in the United States, offering postgraduate and postdoctoral education. It conducts research mainly in biological sciences and medical science, and has produced or attracted many Nobel laureates. The Rockefeller University is located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, between 63rd and 68th Streets along York Avenue.

Marc Tessier-Lavigne—previously executive vice president of research and chief scientific officer at Genentech—became the university's tenth president on March 16, 2011.

The Rockefeller University Press publishes the Journal of Experimental Medicine, the Journal of Cell Biology, and The Journal of General Physiology.

Founder's Hall

History

The Rockefeller University was founded in June 1901 as The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research—often called simply The Rockefeller Institute—by John D. Rockefeller, who had founded the University of Chicago in 1889, upon advice by his adviser Frederick T. Gates^[2] and action taken in March 1901 by his son, John D. Rockefeller Jr.^[3] Greatly elevating the prestige of American science and medicine, it was America's first biomedical institute, like France's Pasteur Institute (1888) and Germany's Robert Koch Institute (1891).^[2]
(The Rockefeller Foundation, a philanthropic organization, founded in 1913, is a separate entity, but had close connections mediated by prominent figures holding dual positions.^[4])

The Rockefeller University campus

The first director of laboratories was Simon Flexner, former Johns Hopkins University student of the Institute's first scientific director, William H. Welch, first dean of Hopkins' medical school and known as the dean of American medicine.^[3] Flexner retired in 1935 and was succeeded by Herbert Gasser,^[5] succeeded in 1953 by Detlev Bronk who broadened The Rockefeller Institute into a university that began awarding the PhD degree in 1954.^[3] In 1965 The Rockefeller Institute's name was changed to The Rockefeller University.^[3]
For its first six decades the Institute focused on basic research to develop basic science, on applied research as biomedical engineering, and, since 1910—when The Rockefeller Hospital opened on its campus as America's first facility for clinical research—on clinical science.^[6] The Rockefeller Hospital's first director, Rufus Cole, retired in 1937 and was succeeded by Thomas Milton Rivers,^[7] who as director of The Rockefeller Institute's virology laboratory established virology as an independent field apart from bacteriology.

Research breakthroughs

Rockefeller researchers were the first to culture the infectious agent associated with syphilis,^[8] showed that viruses can be oncogenic and enabled the field tumor biology,^[9] developed tissue culture techniques,^[10] developed the practice of travel vaccination,^[11] identified the phenomenon of autoimmune disease,^[12] developed virology as an independent field,^[13] developed the first antibiotic,^[14] obtained the first American isolation of influenzavirus A and first isolation of influenzavirus B,^[15] showed that genes are structurally composed of DNA,^[16] discovered blood groups, resolved that virus particles are protein crystals,^[17] helped develop the field cell biology,^[18] resolved antibody structure, developed methadone treatment of heroin addiction, devised the AIDS drug cocktail, and identified the appetite-regulating hormone leptin.^[19]

Notable individuals

Notable figures to emerge from the Institution include Alexis Carrel, Peyton Rous, Hideyo Noguchi, Thomas Milton Rivers, Richard Shope, Thomas Francis Jr, Oswald T. Avery, Wendell Meredith Stanley, René Dubos, and Cornelius P. Rhoads. Others attained eminence before being drawn to the university. Joshua Lederberg, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1958, served as president of the university from 1978 to 1990.^[20] Paul Nurse, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2001, became President in 2003.^[21] (Before Nurse's tenure, Thomas Sakmar was acting-president from 2002.^[22]) In all, 24 Nobel Prize recipients have been associated with the University. In the mid-1970s, the University attracted a few prominent academicians in the humanities, such as Saul Kripke.
Urged by Rockefeller Jr, his only son, who was enthusiastic about the Institute, Rockefeller Sr visited but once, and remained otherwise uninterested.^[23] Rockefeller Jr's youngest son David would visit with his father.^[24] David Rockefeller joined the board of trustees in 1940, was its chairman from 1950 to 1975, chaired the board's executive committee from 1975 to 1995, became honorary chairman and life trustee,^[25] and remained philanthropically active.^[24]

At a glance

Fostering an interdisciplinary atmosphere among its 73 laboratories, a faculty member is assigned to one of only six interconnecting research areas.^[26]^[27]

Research areas

biochemistry, structural biology, chemistry
molecular cell & developmental biology
medical sciences & human genetics
immunology, virology, microbiology
physics & mathematical biology
neuroscience

University community

More than 70 heads of laboratories
200 research and clinical scientists
350 postdoctoral investigators
1,050 clinicians, technicians, administrative and support staff
170 Ph.D. students
25 M.D.-Ph.D. students
1,110 alumni

Nobel Prize winners

2011 Ralph Steinman (Physiology or Medicine)

2003 Roderick MacKinnon (Chemistry)

2001 Paul Nurse (Physiology or Medicine)

2000 Paul Greengard (Physiology or Medicine)

1999 Günter Blobel (Physiology or Medicine)

1984 R. Bruce Merrifield (Chemistry)

1981 Torsten Wiesel (Physiology or Medicine)

1975 David Baltimore (Physiology or Medicine)

1974 Albert Claude, Christian de Duve, George E. Palade (Physiology or Medicine)

1972 Stanford Moore, William H. Stein (Chemistry)

1972 Gerald M. Edelman (Physiology or Medicine)

1967 H. Keffer Hartline (Physiology or Medicine)

1966 Peyton Rous (Physiology or Medicine)

1958 Joshua Lederberg (Physiology or Medicine)

1958 Edward L. Tatum (Physiology or Medicine)

1953 Fritz Lipmann (Physiology or Medicine)

1946 John H. Northrop (Chemistry)

1946 Wendell M. Stanley (Chemistry)

1944 Herbert S. Gasser (Physiology or Medicine)

1930 Karl Landsteiner (Physiology or Medicine)

1912 Alexis Carrel (Physiology or Medicine)

Prominent alumni

David Albert, physicist and philosopher
David Baltimore, recipient of Nobel Prize in Physiology & Medicine in 1975 for the discovery of reverse transcriptase. Has served as president of both The Rockefeller University and the California Institute of Technology.
Michael Bratman, Durfee Professor of philosophy at Stanford University.
Gerald Edelman, recipient of Nobel Prize in Physiology & Medicine in 1972.
Barbara Ehrenreich, social commentator and author of the 2001 book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America.
Jonathan Lear, the John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago, who specializes in Aristotle and psychoanalysis.
Seth Lloyd, physicist
Manuel Elkin Patarroyo, Colombian pathologist who made the world's first attempt of synthetic vaccine for malaria. Recipient of Prince of Asturias Award in 1994.
Robert Sapolsky, Stanford Professor, MacArthur Grant recipient, and writer of numerous books on stress and natural history.
Amos Smith, Rhodes-Thompson professor of chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania
Richard Wolfenden, professor of chemistry, biochemistry and biophysics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

I am not satisfied with this...it is all history...want something more recent...

Well, here is more about their most recent crop of PhD's but this still does not really satisfy me..

17 students receive Ph.D.s at Rockefeller’s 55th Convocation

June 14, 2013 | Campus News

The Rockefeller University awarded doctoral degrees to 17 students at its convocation ceremony yesterday. Additionally, two Nobel winning scientists and members of the Rockefeller faculty, Günter Blobel and Paul Greengard, received honorary degrees along with James H. Simons, a mathematician, investor and philanthropist, and his wife Marilyn Simons, president of the Simons Foundation.

The class of 2013, with faculty mentors and honorary degree recipients.

Each doctoral candidate was presented for the degree by his or her mentor, a tradition dating back to the university’s first commencement ceremony in 1959.
Blobel, who has conducted research at The Rockefeller University since 1967, was the sole recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. His research has answered a fundamental question of biology: How does a cell manage to distribute its large repertoire of proteins to many distant cellular addresses?
Greengard’s studies have provided the framework for understanding how cells in the nervous system communicate with each other via neurotransmitters. A member of the Rockefeller University faculty since 1983, he shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discoveries, which have shed light on the biological mechanisms that underlie movement, perception, thought, memory and emotion.
James Simons is chairman of the Simons Foundation, an organization dedicated to extending the frontiers of basic science, and founder and chairman of Renaissance Technologies, an investment management company that pioneered the use of quantitative analysis to make investment decisions. A mathematician, he served as chairman of the mathematics department of The State University of New York at Stony Brook and has taught mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University.
Marilyn Simons, president of the Simons Foundation, works to advance research in the basic sciences and mathematics through a broad range of programs designed to promote a deeper understanding of our world. Under her guidance, the Simons Foundation has grown to become one of the country’s leading private funders of basic research. Through its online news division, Simons Science News, the foundation has also become and important voice for enhancing public understanding of science.
The graduating students are: Pinar Ayata, Nicole Bowles, Fabio Casadio, Emily Conn Gantman, Teresa Davoli, Paul Daniel Dossa, Amy Grunbeck, Ryan W. King, Adam Michael Knepp, María Maldonado, Suchit H. Patel, Nirmala Ramalingam, Dennis Justin Spencer, Chan Lek Tan, Sarah Van Driesche, Amy Wells Quinkert and Laura Winzenread.