VLAG FLASH - March 2006, Edition 1
Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, USA
Wednesday 10 May 2006, 15:30
Wageningen University & Research Centre
Biotechnion C53, WUR Building 307,
Prof. Lindquist is widely known for her groundbreaking work in the study of protein folding. Her research on how protein conformation affects cell activity has contributed to our understanding of cellular responses to stress and the role of protein misfolding in genetics and disease. Through her work on protein misfolding, she has contributed to the discovery of a new form of genetics where traits are transmitted entirely by self-perpetuating changes in protein folding, rather than inherited through changes in DNA or RNA. These protein-folding changes are thought to be the cause of a number of devastating neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer.s, Parkinson.s and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Prof. Lindquist has recently provided the first experimental evidence that prions are integral to memory storage in the brain.
Lindquist is a Member and former Director (2001-2004) of the Whitehead Institute and a Professor of Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Previously she was the Albert D. Lasker Professor of Medical Sciences from 1999-2001, and a Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology, University of Chicago, since 1978. She received a PhD in Biology from Harvard University in 1976, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1997 and the National Academy of Sciences in 1997. Lindquist.s honors include the prestigious Sigma Xi William Procter Prize for Academic Achievement (2006), the Senior Award, .Women in Cell Biology. in 2004, Dickson Prize in Medicine in 2003 and the Novartis- Drew Award in Biomedical Research in 2000.
More information: dr. Willem van Berkel (Willem.vanBerkel@wur.nl)