[bioundgrd] HHMI Lecture & Luncheon

[MacKenzie Outlund]

Dear Biology Undergraduates,

Each spring the Biology Undergraduate Student Association (BUSA) hosts the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Lecture as its flagship event of the
year.  A prominent researcher joins us to share his/her work and interact
with the MIT community, especially YOU, MIT undergraduates.  We are excited
to announce that Nobel Prize winner Dr. Craig Mello of the University of
Massachusetts Medical School is our distinguished speaker for 2008.

We, the BUSA Executive Board, would like to extend this invitation for you
to join us on Thursday, March 20 at 4:00 p.m. in the Whitehead Auditorium
(WI-110) for the 2008 HHMI Lecture.  A small reception with Dr. Mello
will follow the lecture.

As a part of the lecture, Dr. Mello will have lunch specifically with
undergraduates (from 12-1:30 on March 20, in 68-180 on the day of the
lecture). This is a great opportunity to have a much more personal
interaction with our speaker.

**If you would like to attend this lunch, please RSVP to moutlund at mit.edu.**

An introduction to Dr. Mello's talk and brief biographical information
are included below:

³Return to the RNAi World:  Rethinking Gene Expression, Evolution and
Medicine²
 
While investigating the genetic workings of the microscopic worm, C.
elegans, Mello and colleague Andrew Fire, PhD, of the Carnegie Institution
of Washington, discovered RNAi, a natural but previously unrecognized
process by which a certain form of RNA can be manipulated to silence‹or
interfere with‹the expression of a selected gene. The discovery, published
in the journal Nature in 1998, has had two extraordinary impacts on
biological science. One is as a research tool: RNAi is now the
state-of-the-art method by which scientists can knock out the expression of
specific genes in cells, to thus define the biological functions of those
genes. But just as important has been the finding that RNA interference is a
normal process of genetic regulation that takes place during development.
Thus, RNAi has provided not only a powerful research tool for experimentally
knocking out the expression of specific genes, but has opened a completely
new and totally unanticipated window on developmental gene regulation.  RNAi
is now showing promising in the clinic as a new class of gene-specific
therapeutics.

Dr. Craig C. Mello received his B.Sc. degree in Biochemistry from Brown
University in 1982, and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1990.
>From 1990 to 1994 he conducted postdoctoral research at the Fred Hutchinson
Cancer Research Center in Seattle, WA.  He has been a member of the
University of Massachusetts Medical School faculty since 1995, and a Howard
Hughes Medical Investigator since 2000.  His pioneering research on RNAi, in
collaboration with Dr. Andrew Fire, has been recognized with numerous awards
culminating with the prestigious 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

We hope to see you March 20!


Sincerely,

BUSA Executive Board


Andrew Glazer
President

Camille Chow
Vice President

Scott Chilton
Secretary

Dima Ter-Ovanesyan
Treasurer

Cathy Zhang
Officer-at-Large