STEM Ed Announcement: Nobel laureate Oliver Smithies will speak

[Morton Sternheim <mort@k12s.phast.umass.edu>]

This is a UMass Amherst talk open to the public.
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Smithies to speak on 'being a scientist for 60 years'

Nobel laureate Oliver Smithies will give a talk titled On Being a Scientist
for Sixty Years on Monday, Sept. 14 at 4 p.m. in the Campus Center
Auditorium.

Smithies, who is the Excellence Professor of Pathology and Laboratory
Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of
Medicine, won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Mario
Capecci and Martin Evans for their discoveries of principles for introducing
specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells.

Smithies lab interests include the construction of animal models of complex
human genetic diseases to facilitate better studies of their genetics and
the resultant pathology and to help develop new modes of treatment,
including gene therapy. Hypertension and other genetic diseases, including
sickle cell disease, have been part of Smithies recent research. 

The talk is part of the graduate program in Molecular and Cellular Biology
(MCB) fall seminar series, co-hosted by the Institute for Cellular
Engineering.