VOLUME 13, NUMBER 01 • SEPTEMBER 21, 2001

Friday Lecture Series to Continue This Week

Last week's Friday lecture was cancelled because of the events in New York City, but the series will continue this Friday, Sept. 21.

Malcolm Whitman, an associate professor of cell biology at Harvard Medical School, will discuss "Patterning of Early Vertebrate Embryos by TGF-Beta Signals."

"Malcolm's work at Harvard has had one of the strongest impacts on the resolution of signal transduction pathways involved in early vertebrate embryonic cell fate determination," says Rockefeller Professor Ali H. Brivanlou, who is hosting the event.

Members of the TGF-beta superfamily of polypeptide growth factors are responsible for the proper formation of the vertebrate body plan. These crucial signals instruct cells to become mesodermal tissue during early embryogenesis, as well as establish important molecular patterns within this germ layer. The mesoderm is one of three germ layers in vertebrates that ultimately will become bone, muscle, blood and other organs.

The goal of Whitman's lab is to better understand how these signals specify cell fate in early vertebrate development. Using the frog embryo as a model, they hope to characterize both the roles of known signaling pathways in the specification of early embryonic mesoderm and to identify novel signal transduction pathways.

They have identified a novel transcription factor (FAST-1) that interacts with the major intracellular transducers of TGF-beta signals, the Smads. This interaction triggers the mesodermal gene program in the early frog embryo. Interestingly, the researchers found that FAST-1 plays an additional role in left-right patterning at a subsequent stage of development, also under the control of TGF-beta signaling. Currently, Whitman's lab is investigating how FAST-1 can regulate different sets of genes at different developmental stages in response to the same extracellular signal.

Whitman received his undergraduate degree from Yale College in 1981 and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1987. He completed his postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Douglas Melton at Harvard University in 1992, at which time he was appointed an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. Whitman's awards include the Lucille P. Markey Scholar Award and the Yamanouchi Foundation Award, given for excellence in biomedical research.

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