Gene-editing Pioneer Jennifer Doudna Delivers Lefkowitz Lecture
Basic Science Day and the Robert J. Lefkowitz, MD, Distinguished Lecture on Wednesday, November 29, 2017, drew hundreds of faculty, staff and students from across the School of Medicine and campus. School of Medicine Dean Mary E. Klotman opened the meeting, which was hosted by Vice Dean for Basic Science Raphael Valdivia and featured faculty speakers representing all of the School’s basic science departments as well as a student poster session.
The meeting culminated with a standing-room-only crowd of more than 500 to hear Jennifer Doudna, PhD, the distinguished Lefkowitz lecturer. Dr. Doudna, a biochemist at UC Berkeley, is a pioneer in genome editing. She co-discovered a technique known as the Crispr-Cas9, which enables the alteration of DNA and is considered one of science’s most significant discoveries.
School of Medicine Faculty Speakers
- Honored Speaker - Brigid Hogan, PhD, George Barth Geller Professor of Research in Molecular Biology; Chair, Department of Cell Biology
- Lindsey Glickfeld, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Neurobiology
- Dan Belsky, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Population Health Sciences
- Michael Boyce, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry
- Chris Newgard, PhD, W. David and Sarah W. Stedman Distinguished Professor, Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology; Director, Duke Molecular Physiology Institute
- Stacy Horner, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology
- Kingshuk Roy Choudhury, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics
- Maria Ciofani, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Immunology
- Charlie Gersbach, PhD, Rooney Family Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Pratt School
- Stefano Di Talia, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Cell Biology
