VOLUME 12, NUMBER 19 • APRIL 6, 2001

Ploegh to Give Levine Memorial Lecture Next Week

Hidde L. Ploegh, Edward Mallinckrodt Jr. Professor of Immunopathology in the Department of Pathology and the director of the Graduate Pro-gram in Immunology at Harvard Medical School, will present the Philip Levine Memorial lecture next Fri., April 13. His topic will be "Cell Biology of Antigen Presentation."

Hidde L. Ploegh will discuss the cell biology of antigen presentation next week.

Ploegh studies the biochemistry of antigen presentation, or the MHC Class I or II molecules that present short peptides to T lymphocytes. Since viruses are capable of a large range of evasive maneuvers when MHC-activated T cells exert selective pressure on virus-infected cells, Ploegh’s laboratory studies the steps that lead from the production of cytosolic peptides to the assembly of a peptide-loaded MHC molecule. This work focuses in particular on the various mechanisms by which viruses manage to elude this presentation pathway.

Ploegh’s laboratory has observed the human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) in two HCMV-encoded gene products, US2 and US11, targeting newly synthesized MHC Class I molecules for extraction from the endoplasmic reticulum and delivery to the cytosol, where the MHC Class I heavy chains are destroyed by the proteasome. Other strategies are used by pathogens to elude MHC Class II molecules since those essentially rely on endosomal/ lysosomal proteolysis to accomplish peptide loading, and hence are distinct from the cell biological mechanisms used by MHC Class I products.

Ploegh received his B.Sc. in biology and M.Sc. in biology and chemistry from the State University of Groningen, The Netherlands. He received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the State University of Leiden, The Netherlands, in 1981 after conducting his thesis work at Harvard University in the laboratory of J.L. Strominger. From 1981 to 1992, Ploegh held scientific posts in Europe, including head of the Department of Cellular Biochemistry at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam. In 1992, Ploegh moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a professor of biology, and in 1997 accepted his current position at Harvard Medical School.

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