March 8
11 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Mary Ellen Jones Distinguished Women in Science Lecture
"Noncoding RNAs: with a viral twist"
Speaker: Joan Steitz, PhD
MBRB Auditorium 2204

12 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Postdoctoral Research Poster Forum
MBRB Hall & Lobby

3 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Oliver Smithies Nobel Lecture
“From the structure and function of the ribosome to new antibiotics”
Speaker: Dr. Tom Steitz
MBRB Auditorium 2204

March 9

11 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Women in Science Mentoring Talk
“Beyond bias and barriers: challenges for women in science”
Speaker: Joan Steitz, PhD
MBRB Auditorium 2204

Click here for more details.

About Dr. Joan Steitz
Dr. Joan Steitz is a HHMI Investigator and Sterling professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Steitz is best known for discovering and defining the function of small nuclear ribonucleoproteins (snRNPs), which occur only in higher cells and organisms. Her current research interests are in the multiple roles played by noncoding RNA–protein complexes in gene expression in vertebrate cells.

About Dr. Thomas A. Steitz

Dr. Thomas A. Steitz, Sterling professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry and Professor of Chemistry at Yale University, is one of three winners of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work describing the structure and function of the ribosome. Steitz’s work has elucidated the structure and function of the ribosome, an enormously complex ensemble of numerous protein and RNA components. Steitz and colleagues built upon research of the past half century to describe in minute detail the architecture of the protein-making machinery. Scientific interest on the ribosome has focused on two major subunits. The smaller 30S subunit binds to messenger RNA that harbors the blueprint for protein synthesis. The second subunit 50S carries out the protein synthesis reaction by adding specific amino acid residues onto a growing protein backbone.