University Of Pittsburgh's Laureate Lecture Series To Feature Noted NIH Molecular Biologist

University of Pittsburg Medical Center
Tuesday, 1 June 2004

Presentation to Focus on Factors Regulating Protein Synthesis

Alan G. Hinnebusch, Ph.D., who studies the factors regulating protein synthesis – the critical foundation of almost all biological events, will be the next nationally prominent speaker in the 2004 Senior Vice Chancellor's Laureate Lecture Series at the University of Pittsburgh.

Dr. Hinnebusch is a laboratory chief at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Md. His presentation, "Functions of a Multi-Factor Complex in the Initiation of Protein Synthesis and Translational Control," is scheduled for noon, Wednesday, June 9, in Auditorium 6, Scaife Hall, 3550 Terrace St., Oakland.

"I am delighted to welcome Alan to our campus for this lecture because of the great promise his work holds for advancing our understanding of protein synthesis, a process that is at the heart of cell structure and function," said Arthur S. Levine, M.D., senior vice chancellor for the health sciences and dean of the School of Medicine. "For this lecture series, I have selected researchers who are among the most creative and innovative scientific minds of our day and whose work should hold great interest for our own investigators here at the University of Pittsburgh."

The factors underlying protein formation are not fully understood. Dr. Hinnebusch uses the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to study the translation of messenger RNA into protein because the transcriptional (information-producing) and translational (protein-producing) machineries of yeast are structurally similar to those of mammals. Dr. Hinnebusch's approach is to determine the fundamental mechanisms of gene regulation and protein synthesis in yeast, an easily manipulated model, and then to translate his findings into a picture that is relevant to mammalian cell biology, especially the biology of humans.

Dr. Hinnebusch has been chief of the Laboratory of Gene Regulation and Development at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) since 2001. Following the completion of his doctorate at Harvard University and a postdoctoral fellowship at Cornell University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he began his career at NIH in 1983, initially as a senior staff fellow in NICHD's Laboratory of Molecular Genetics. From 1987 to 1995, he was head of that laboratory's Section on Molecular Genetics of Lower Eukaryotes and from 1995 to 2001, he served as chief of the Laboratory of Eukaryotic Gene Regulation.

In addition, he has been a lecturer in the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory course on yeast genetics since 1987 and a co-organizer of various meetings there.

In 1994, Dr. Hinnebusch was elected to fellowship in the American Academy of Microbiology. He also is a member of the Genetics Society of America and the American Society of Microbiology and serves on the editorial boards of Genes & Development and the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Among his honors are the Public Health Service Superior Service Award, the Wellcome Visiting Professorship in the Basic Medical Sciences at the Medical College of Wisconsin and Maryland's Outstanding Young Scientist Award.

Other upcoming speakers in the 2004 Laureate Lecture Series are Roger W. Hendrix, Ph.D., professor of biological sciences and co-director of the Pittsburgh Bacteriophage Institute at the University of Pittsburgh, on September 22; and Ralph M. Steinman, M.D., Henry G. Kunkel Professor and senior physician, Laboratory of Cellular Physiology and Immunology, and director of the Christopher H. Browne Center for Immunology and Immune Diseases at the Rockefeller University, on November 4.

For more information, or to contact University of Pittsburg Medical Center, see their website at: www.upmc.com