Nobel Laureate Cech set for Discovery Lecture
Thomas Cech, Ph.D., who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering the catalytic properties of ribonucleic acid (RNA), will deliver the next Discovery Lecture on Thursday, March 4.
Cech, Distinguished Professor at the University of Colorado-Boulder and director of the Colorado Initiative in Molecular Biotechnology, served as president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) from 2000 to 2009.
Thomas Cech, Ph.D.
His lecture, “Crawling out of the RNA world,” will begin at 4 p.m. in 208 Light Hall.
Cech and his colleagues discovered in 1982 that an RNA molecule from the single-celled pond organism Tetrahymena cut and rejoined chemical bonds (catalytic activity) in the absence of proteins — the first exception to the long-held belief that proteins always catalyze biological reactions.
His laboratory now studies the structure and activity of telomerase, which plays a key role in replicating the DNA at the ends of chromosomes and is involved in genome stability, cancer and cellular aging.
Cech, who is an HHMI Investigator, received the 1988 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Biomedical Research and the 1995 National Medal of Science.
His lecture, the Abraham Flexner Lecture in Biomedical Science, is sponsored by the Center for Matrix Biology and the Department of Pathology.
For a complete schedule of the Discovery Lecture series and archived video of previous lectures, go to www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/discoveryseries.