The rockefeller university

Event Details

Type

Friday Lecture Series

Speaker(s)

Bruce Beutler, M.D., Regental Professor, director, Center for the Genetics of Host Defense, Raymond and Ellen Willie Distinguished Chair in Cancer Research, in Honor of Laverne and Raymond Willie, Sr., The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

Speaker bio(s)

Forward genetic studies of immunity and other phenomena in mice have created conceptual breakthroughs, but historically, the process was rather slow. Long after the advent of massively parallel sequencing technologies, the rate-limiting step in mammalian forward genetics remained genetic mapping: the confinement of a particular phenotype to a specific genetic interval. Moreover, the saturation achieved by mutagenesis remained a matter of speculation. To automate mapping, Dr. Beutler's laboratory has developed a computational technology that allows them to identify causative mutations in real time. When a phenotype is detected within a large pedigree, the cause is now known within hours. The amount of saturation is also known in real time. Over a period of two years, Dr. Beutler's laboratory has destroyed or damaged about one quarter of all genes in the mouse genome, and monitored the effects of homozygosity for damaging mutations at these loci three or more times. Chemical mutagenesis offers the possibility of finding the majority of genes with non-redundant function in any biological process readily monitored in screening.

 

Dr. Beutler shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Jules A. Hoffmann of Strasbourg University “for their discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity,” the first step in the body’s immune response. The late Dr. Ralph M. Steinman of Rockefeller was also honored that year.

 

A Regental Professor at UT Southwestern who holds the Raymond and Ellen Willie Distinguished Chair in Cancer Research, in Honor of Laverne and Raymond Willie Sr., Dr. Beutler earned his M.D. from the University of Chicago in 1981. His postgraduate work at UT Southwestern included an internal medicine internship and neurology residency. During a brief fellowship and faculty appointment at Rockefeller, Dr. Beutler isolated tumor necrosis factor, one of the most important mediators of inflammation. He then returned to UT Southwestern as a faculty member and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator from 1986 to 2000. Between 2000 and 2011, Dr. Beutler was at The Scripps Research Institute.

 

He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In addition to the Nobel Prize, Dr. Beutler is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Robert Koch Prize in 2004, the Grand Prix Charles-Léopold Mayer from the Académie des Sciences in France in 2006, the Balzan Prize in 2007, and the Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine in 2011.

Open to

Public

Host

Michel Nussenzweig, M.D., Ph.D.

Reception

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

Contact

Linda Hanssler

Phone

(212) 327-7714

Sponsor

Linda Hanssler
(212) 327-7714
lhanssler@rockefeller.edu

Readings

http://librarynews.rockefeller.edu/?p=4038