[bioundgrd] HHMI Lecture THURSDAY

[MacKenzie Outlund]

Hello course 7 undergrads,

Don't forget about this exciting opportunity to hear Craig Mello speak this
Thursday @ 4pm in the Whitehead Auditorium!

------ Forwarded Message
> From: MacKenzie Outlund <moutlund at mit.edu>
> Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 14:41:26 -0500
> To: "bioundgrd at mit.edu" <bioundgrd at mit.edu>
> Conversation: HHMI Lecture & Luncheon
> Subject: HHMI Lecture & Luncheon
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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
> 

------ End of Forwarded Message