The rockefeller university

Event Details

Type

Friday Lecture Series

Speaker(s)

Susan Gottesman, Ph.D., NIH Distinguished Investigator; co-chief, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, National Cancer Institute

Speaker bio(s)

A large family of bacterial small regulatory RNAs (sRNAs) pairs with mRNAs and controls translation and mRNA stability, akin to eukaryotic microRNAs and siRNAs. Unlike the eukaryotic microRNAs, bacterial sRNAs do not necessarily undergo processing. They use the Hfq protein chaperone, a member of the Sm/Lsm family of splicing proteins, rather than the RISC complex to promote pairing with targets. Studies in E. coli have demonstrated how the synthesis of many of these sRNAs is regulated (the "on"-switch for using a regulatory sRNA) and identified their targets, allowing reconstruction of the roles of the sRNAs in regulatory circuits. Dr. Gottesman's studies of Hfq and its in vivo roles have demonstrated that the sRNAs that use Hfq fall into two distinct classes that differ in how they bind Hfq, and how and when the sRNAs are degraded (the "off"-switch for small regulatory RNA-based regulation).

 

Susan Gottesman received her Ph.D. in microbiology and molecular genetics from Harvard University. She did postdoctoral training at the National Institutes of Health and at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and returned to NIH in 1976 as a senior investigator in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology of the National Cancer Institute. She is currently co-chief of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology and an NIH Distinguished Investigator. Dr. Gottesman was elected to the American Academy of Microbiology in 1993, the National Academy of Sciences in 1998 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1997. She was given the Abbott ASM Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011. Dr. Gottesman is currently editor of Annual Review of Microbiology, and is on the editorial board of Genes and Development, Journal of Bacteriology and Molecular Microbiology.

 

Joshua Lederberg was president emeritus of The Rockefeller University. A graduate of Stuyvesant High School, Columbia College and Yale University, he discovered bacterial conjugation, a mechanism of DNA transfer in bacteria, and earned the Nobel Prize in 1958, at age 33. He came to Rockefeller in 1978 as its fifth president and the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Scholar, serving until 1990. Throughout his career, Dr. Lederberg served as scientific adviser to world leaders and headed influential committees and policy studies. This lecture on molecular genetics was endowed by the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation following Dr. Lederberg's retirement in 1990. Dr. Lederberg died in 2008.

 

Open to

Public

Reception

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

Contact

Alena Powell

Phone

(212) 327-7745

Sponsor

Alena Powell
(212) 327-7745
apowell@rockefeller.edu