Joan Brugge, chair of the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School, will deliver the 2014 Robert L. Sinsheimer Distinguished Lecture in Biology at UC Santa Cruz on Thursday, May 22. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 4:30 p.m. in the Media Theater on the UCSC campus.
Brugge has been an innovator in cancer research since the beginning of her career, when she isolated the viral and cellular forms of the Src protein--the first retroviral oncogene product to be identified--as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado. Since then, she has continued to shape ideas and new techniques in the field of cancer biology. Her lab recently discovered a novel process called entosis, or cell death by invasion, in which a cell is enveloped by a neighboring cell. Such new discoveries promise fresh ways forward in the search for strategies to kill cancer cells.
Brugge has combined her academic research interests with significant accomplishments in the private sector, spending 5 years as the Scientific Director and Vice President for Research of ARIAD Pharmaceuticals. She joined the faculty at Harvard Medical School in 1997. Brugge has received several awards recognizing her scientific accomplishments and has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Institute of Medicine.
The Sinsheimer Distinguished Lectureship in Biology was established in 1992 by Chancellor emeritus Robert L. Sinsheimer and his wife, Karen. This lectureship is part of Sinsheimer's continuing relationship with UCSC. A pioneer of molecular biology, he was the fourth Chancellor of UCSC, ushering it through a critical decade of growth (1977-1987). Sinsheimer also hosted the 1985 "Santa Cruz Workshop," a meeting of internationally prominent scientists to consider the feasibility and desirability of sequencing the human genome.
For more information about this lecture, please call (831) 459-2632.
