STEM Ed Announcement: 7th Nordin Symposium, May 20, 21, 2010: Jack Szostak

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

This is not a STEM Education Instite event.
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I announce on behalf of the BMB Department the 7th John H. Nordin
Symposium on May 20, 21st, 2010.

The Nordin Lecturer is Dr. Jack Szostak, Alex A. Rich Distinguished
Investigator, Havard Medical School, Mass Gen. Hospital.
Among other honors, Dr. Szostak shared the 2009 Nobel
Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his early work on telomeres.

He has since moved on "to explore a much broader question: how life
could have originated from the simple chemicals present on the early
earth. He has already made advances in this long intractable field,
notably by showing how a proto-cell could have formed and then
imported the RNA building blocks.  Dr. Szostak hopes next to show how the proto-cell
and its RNA could divide naturally into two daughter cells, a feat that,
if achieved, could well be a candidate for a second Nobel Prize" (NYT, Oct. 6, 2009).

The Nordin lectures will be on these current topics..

Lecture I
The Chemical Replication of Nucleic Acids and the Origins of Darwinian Evolution
Thursday, May 20, 2010 4:00PM Integrated Science Building (ISB) Room 135, UMass Amherst
Light Refreshments following the seminar

Lecture II
The Origin of Life on the Early Earth
Friday, May 21, 2010 12:00PM Integrated Science Building (ISB) Room 135,  UMass Amherst