May 29, 2008
Krebs Lecture to mark birthday and new pharmacology professorship
The School of Medicine’s Department of Pharmacology will present the 21st Annual Edwin G. Krebs Lecture in Molecular Pharmacology at 4:30 p.m., Tuesday, June 3, in room T-625 of the Health Sciences Center. A reception at 4 p.m. will honor Dr. Edwin Krebs, professor emeritus of pharmacology and biochemistry, who will be 90 years old on June 6. In 1992 he, along with Dr. Edmond Fischer, professor emeritus of biochemistry, won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their early work on cell signaling and protein phosphorylation.
Before the Krebs Lecture, Dr. Bill Catterall, professor and chair of the Department of Pharmacology, and Dr. Paul G. Ramsey, CEO of UW Medicine, and dean of the School of Medicine, will announce the completion of fundraising and the proposed appointment of the first holder of the Edwin G. Krebs-Hilma Speights Endowed Professorship in Cell Signaling and Cancer Biology. This professorship honors Krebs for his seminal contributions to cell signaling research and recognizes Hilma Speights for her exceptional support of cancer research. The professorship will support a leading scientist working in cell signaling and cancer biology and provide funds for research symposia and educational programs in this important research area.
The speaker for the annual lecture and the proposed Krebs-Speights Professor will be Dr. John Scott, who worked with Krebs as a postdoctoral fellow and is now at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, where he is professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a member of the Vollum Institute. Scott earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. His appointment as Krebs-Speights Professor is pending approval of the UW Regents..
He plans to move to the UW to assume his position as Krebs-Speights Professor, professor of pharmacology, and investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in July 2008. Scott is a world-leading investigator of localized cell signaling mechanisms and the role of kinase scaffolding proteins in organizing signal transduction pathways in nerve, cardiac, and endocrine cells and in cancer. His topic for the lecture will be Cell Signaling in Space and Time.
“John Scott’s work has made a major contribution to understanding the specificity of cell signaling in cellular regulation and in molecular pharmacology through his groundbreaking discoveries of the diversity of form and function of kinase anchoring proteins. He will be a wonderful addition to the UW research community,” Catterall said. The lecture and preceding reception are open to everyone.
