VOLUME 12, NUMBER 17 • MARCH 9, 2001

FRIDAY LECTURE

Darnell to Discuss the Role of Stats Today

Vincent Astor Professor James E. Darnell Jr. will give the Friday lecture today (March 9). His topic will be "The Stats: Roles in Transcription and Cancer."

The family of STAT proteins plays an important role in many normal developmental processes, but during the past several years, a growing number of scientific reports have indicated that human tumor samples contain persistently activated Stats (Stats 1, 3 and 5 most frequently). Similarly, reports also have cited a persistent activation of Stat proteins, particularly Stat3, in cell lines started from human tumors and in laboratory experiments in which oncogenes (cancer-causing genes) are used to turn normal cells into cancer cells. Recent research in the lab showed that activated Stat3 could, by itself, act as the transforming agent. Darnell’s laboratory discovered the Stats and pioneered studies of the activation of these proteins.

Professor James E. Darnell Jr.’s lab discovered the Stats and pioneered studies of the activation of these proteins.

The broad purpose of Darnell’s research has been to gain a better understanding of what regulates messenger RNA content (gene expression) in mammalian cells, as opposed to the simpler, better understood bacterial cells. (In bacteria, the DNA is not bound within a nuclear membrane. The bacterial genes are arranged in sequence along a single, circular chromosome.) This research is basic to under-standing how normal cells develop and become specialized–that is, how instructions in genes get copied into mRNA and expressed at the right time and at the proper rate.

Darnell’s work supplied much of the evidence for the now generally accepted concept that all RNA is formed by extensive "molecular carpentry." His first studies on RNA were with ribosomal and tRNA molecules that assist in coding mRNA to make protein. He found that both these molecules were chemically "processed" (chemical groups were added after synthesis and a long initial product was cut into usable pieces) before their use in the cytoplasm.

He also demonstrated that in the manufacture of mRNA a long nuclear molecule that had to be cut into pieces was the initial product. Others demonstrated that in fact some of the pieces were "spliced" back together again. Currently, he and his colleagues are exploring what initiates and regulates mRNA synthesis in the normal cells of a developing embryo and in cells infected with cancer-causing viruses.

Darnell received a B.A. degree in 1951 from the University of Mississippi and an M.D. degree in 1955 from the Washington University School of Medicine, which awarded him the Borden Undergraduate Research Award in 1956. From 1955 to 1956, he interned at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. From 1956 to 1960, he was engaged in poliovirus research in the Laboratory of Cell Biology headed by Harry Eagle at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

From 1960 to 1961, he studied with Francois Jacob at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. In 1961, he joined the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as an assistant professor of biology. He became associate professor in 1962, and he was the recipient of the United States Public Health Service Career Scientist Award (1962-64) while at M.I.T.

Darnell was appointed professor of biochemistry and cell biology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1964 and remained there until 1968, when he became professor in the biological sciences department at Columbia University. He was named chairman of the department in 1971.

From 1965 to 1970, he served concurrently as Career Scientist of the Health Research Council of the City of New York. He was Alan H. Kemper Professor of Biological Sciences at Columbia from 1971 to 1974.

In 1974, shortly after his arrival at Rockefeller, Darnell was named a Vincent Astor Professor under a grant from The Vincent Astor Foundation for the establishment of two chairs to be held by senior scientists of The Rockefeller University whose past work and planned investigations relate to one of the fields basic to achieving a deeper understanding of the treatment and prevention of cancer. He was vice president for academic affairs from 1990 to 1991.

Elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1973, Darnell is a foreign member of the Royal Society of London and an honorary member of theJapanese Biochemical Society and has received numerous awards in recent years.

He is the co-author of two textbooks, General Virology and Molecular Cell Biology. He has also served on the editorial boards of The Journal of Cell Biology, The Journal of Molecular Biology and Cell.

Darnell has been a member of a number of advisory bodies to the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the American Cancer Society, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The lecture begins in Caspary Auditorium at 3:45 p.m. and is preceded by a tea in Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Lounge at 3:15 p.m. All are welcome