The rockefeller university

Event Details

Type

Friday Lecture Series

Speaker(s)

Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D., James B. Duke Professor of Medicine and professor of biochemistry, Duke University Medical Center; investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Speaker bio(s)

Seven transmembrane receptors (7TMRs), also known as G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) represent by far the largest, most versatile and most ubiquitous of the several families of plasma membrane receptors. They regulate virtually all known physiological processes in humans. As recently as 40 years ago, the very existence of cellular receptors for drugs and hormones was highly controversial, and there was essentially no direct means of studying these putative molecules. Today, the family of GPCRs is known to number approximately 1,000, and crystal structures have recently been solved of approximately 20 members of the family and even of a receptor-G protein complex. Dr. Lefkowitz will briefly review how the field evolved over the past 40 years, describing some of his own research throughout this period. He will also discuss recent developments in the field, which are changing scientists' concepts of how the receptors function and are regulated in fundamental ways. Dr. Lefkowitz will discuss the possibility of leveraging this new mechanistic and molecular information to develop new classes of therapeutic agents, and will show how his lab has been applying the tools of structural biology to understand receptor signaling at atomic level resolution.

 

Dr. Lefkowitz earned his M.D. from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1966, and did his residency with the departments of medicine at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center as well as Massachusetts General Hospital. He worked in research at the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases and the department of cardiology at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Lefkowitz joined the faculty at Duke University Medical Center in 1973 and became a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator in 1976. He has received numerous awards and honors, including the National Medal of Science, the Shaw Prize, the Albany Prize and the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1988.

Open to

Public

Reception

Refreshments, 3:15 p.m. - 3:45 p.m., Abby Lounge

Contact

Alena Powell(opens in new window)

Phone

(212) 327-7745(opens in new window)

Sponsor

Alena Powell
(212) 327-7745(opens in new window)
apowell@rockefeller.edu(opens in new window)

Readings

http://librarynews.rockefeller.edu/?p=3469(opens in new window)