April 4, 2013

Nobel laureate Hartwell set for Discovery Lecture

Nobel laureate Lee Hartwell, Ph.D., will deliver the next Flexner Discovery Lecture on Thursday, April 11.

Nobel laureate Lee Hartwell, Ph.D., will deliver the next Flexner Discovery Lecture on Thursday, April 11.

Lee Hartwell, Ph.D.

His lecture, “The emerging world of biomarkers,” will begin at 4 p.m. in 208 Light Hall. It is sponsored by the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center and the Department of Cancer Biology.

Hartwell is the Virginia G. Piper Chair in Personalized Medicine and chief scientist at the Center for Sustainable Health at Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute. At the center, he is developing molecular diagnostics that will provide measures of health and disease — “biosignatures” — and establishing a Global Biosignatures Network.

Prior to joining the Center for Sustainable Health, Hartwell was president and director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

He studied genes that control cell division in yeast and identified the fundamental role of “checkpoint” genes. Similar genes control cell division in humans and are frequently mutated in cancer.

For his discoveries, Hartwell was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

For a complete schedule of the Flexner Discovery Lecture series and archived video of previous lectures, go to www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/discoveryseries.