by Bill Snyder
Ruth Lehmann, PhD, a world-renowned expert on the biology of germ cells, which generate eggs and sperm, will deliver the next Flexner Discovery Lecture on Thursday, March 21.
Her lecture, which is sponsored by the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, will begin at 4 p.m. in 208 Light Hall.
Lehmann is director of the Kimmel Center for Stem Cell Biology and of the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine at the New York University Langone Medical Center in New York City. She also is the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Professor of Cell Biology and chair of the department.
Primordial germ cells are the stem cells of the next generation. Lehmann’s long-term goal is to functionally dissect the germ cell “life cycle,” including migration through the embryo, formation of the embryonic gonad and the transition to germline stem cells that eventually give rise to sperm and egg.
Lehman is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and an associate member of the European Molecular Biology Organization. In 2011 she was awarded the Edwin Grant Conklin Medal by the Society for Developmental Biology.
For a complete schedule of the Flexner Discovery Lecture series and archived video of previous lectures, go to mc.vanderbilt.edu/discoveryseries.
