The NIH Director's 2008-2009
Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series

All lectures are in the Jack Masur Auditorium, Bldg. 10, from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. on Wednesdays unless otherwise noted.

Lectures are viewable live on the web and also on videotape at the NIH Library, Bldg. 10, approximately one week after the lecture date. The WALS is captioned for the web; you may request sign language or a monitor with the captions in Masur auditorium. Visit the ORS website or contact the Worksite and Enrichment Program Branch (WEPB) TTY at 301-435-1908.

Attention NIH Fellows: Sign up for lunch with the WALS speakers. Eleven slots are open for each lecture. Register for a WALS lunch here.

Weekly write-ups on the speakers and the lectures are at http://www.nih.gov/ddir/Lectures.html (NIH only), and a poster of the 2008-2009 schedule with photographs is available as a 11"x17" PDF file.


September 3, 2008 Alejandro Sánchez, HHMI Investigator, University of Utah School of Medicine
"Dying Young as Late as Possible: Planarians Regeneration and Stem Cells"
September 10, 2008 Joseph Schlessinger, Professor and Chair of Pharmacology, Yale School of Medicine
"Cell Signaling By Receptor Tyrosine Kinases: From Basic Principles To Cancer Therapy"
September 17, 2008 No WALS scheduled
September 24, 2008
Dyer Lecture
Nathan Wolfe, UCLA Professor of Epidemiology, NIH Pioneer Award Winner
"Viral Forecasting"
October 1, 2008 Ana Maria Cuervo, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
"Chaperone-Mediated Autophagy: Tales from an Old 'Picky' Broom"
October 8, 2008 Warner Greene, Director and Senior Investigator, Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology, UCSF
"The APOBECs: A Biodefense Against 'Retro-threats' Foreign and Domestic"
October 15, 2008 NIH Research Festival week; no WALS scheduled
October 22, 2008
Mider Lecture
Elaine Ostrander, Chief of NHGRI's Cancer Genetics Branch
"Genetics and the Shapes of Dogs"
October 29, 2008
Stetten Lecture
Roger Kornberg, Stanford University Medical School, 2006 Nobel Prize winner
"The Molecular Basis of Eukaryotic Transcription"
November 5, 2008 Virginia Lee, Director, Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research, UPenn Medical School
"TDP-43: A New Class of Proteinopathies in Neurodgenerative Diseases"
November 12, 2008 Judy Cameron, professor of Physiology & Pharmacology, Obstetrics & Gynecology, and Behavioral Neuroscience, Oregon Regional Primate Research Center, Oregon Health & Science University
"Exercise is Good for the Brain as well as the Body: Effects on Gene Expression, Neural Functioning and Neuroprotection"
November 19, 2008 Leonard Guarente, Novartis Professor of Biology, MIT
"Sirtuins, Aging and Disease"
November 26, 2008 Thanksgiving break; no WALS
December 2, 2008
special Tuesday lecture
John Collier, Harvard Medical School
"Structure and Function of the Anthrax Toxin Pore"
December 3, 2008 Jon Beckwith, Harvard Medical School
"Evolution and Diversity of Pathways for Disulfide Bond Formation and Reduction"
December 10, 2008 Tobias Meyer, Professor, Stanford University Medical School
STIM Proteins Function as Signaling Relays that Transmit Endoplasmic Reticulum Calcium Signals to the Plasma Membrane
December 17, 2008
Director's Lecture #1
D. Holmes Morton, "country doctor" and founder and director of the Clinic For Special Children
"A Pediatrician's Perspective on the Human Genome Project and Genomic Pediatrics"
December 24, 2008 Christmas break; no WALS
December 31, 2008 New Year's break; no WALS
January 7, 2009 Victor Ambros, Professor, UMass Medical School
"MicroRNA Pathways in Animal Development"
January 14, 2009
Astute Clinician Lecture
Harry Dietz, HHMI Investigator, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
"Marfan Syndrome and Related Disorders: From Molecules to Medicines"
January 21, 2009 Martha Gray, Director, Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology
"Towards Imaging Biomarkers for Osteoarthritis: Surprises, Challenge, and Opportunities"
January 28, 2009 Aravinda Chakravarti, Professor, JHU School of Medicine and School of Public Health
"Human Genome Analysis, Disease Pathophysiology and Genetic Medicine"
January 29, 2009
special Thursday lecture
Thomas Südhof, HHMI Investigator, Director of the Center for Basic Neuroscience at Southwestern Medical Center
"Molecular Physiology of Neurotransmitter Release"
February 4, 2009 James Ntambi, Professor, University of Wisconsin, Madison
"Role of Stearoyl-CoA Desaturase-1 in Metabolism: Implication in Human Diseases"
February 11, 2009
Cultural Lecture
Atul Gawande, New Yorker magazine columnist and Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School
"Ignorance vs. Ineptitude: Science and the Causes of Failure in Medicine"
February 18, 2009 Steve Kay, Dean of Biological Sciences, UCSD
Systems Approaches to Understanding Circadian Transcriptional Networks
February 25, 2009 David Relman, Professor, Stanford University Medical School, NIH Pioneer Award Winner
Explorations of inner space: human microbial communities in health and disease
March 4, 2009 Janet Rossant, Chief of Research at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto
lecture title TBA
March 11, 2009 Jeffrey Peters, Professor, Penn State Dept. of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences
"Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptors (PPARs) As Molecular Targets For The Treatment And Prevention Of Diseases"
March 18, 2009 Christine Jacobs-Wagner, Yale
Exploring the bacterial internal organization: Cell polarization and cytoskeleton-dependent cell morphogenesis
March 25, 2009 Alfred Wittinghofer, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology
The Universe of GTP-binding proteins: un tema con variationi
April 1, 2009 A. James Hudspeth, HHMI Investigator, Rockefeller University Laboratory of Sensory Neuroscience
"Making an Effort to Listen: Mechanical Amplification by Myosin Molecules and Ion Channels in Hair Cells of the Inner Ear"
April 8, 2009 S. Ananth Karumanchi, HHMI Investigator, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
"Pathogenesis of Preeclampsia"
April 15, 2009 Lois Smith, Professor, Children's Hospital Boston
lecture title TBA; expert on retinopathy of prematurity
April 22, 2009 Ruslan Medzhitov, HHMI Investigator, Yale School of Medicine
"Innate Host Defense: Mechanisms and Pathways"
April 29, 2009 Erkki Ruoslahti, Burnham Institute for Medical Research (former President and CEO)
"Vascular Zip Codes in Targeted Delivery of Multifunctional Nanodevices"
May 6, 2009
Director's Lecture #2
Eric Nestler, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
"Transcriptional Mechanisms of Drug Addiction"
May 13, 2009 James Collins, HHMI Investigator, Boston University, NIH Pioneer Award Winner
lecture title TBA; expert on systems biology and reverse engineering
May 20, 2009 Tom Rapoport, HHMI Investigator, Harvard Medical School
"Mechanisms of Protein Translocation Across Membranes"
May 27, 2009 Hidde Ploegh, MIT Whitehead Institute
lecture title TBA; immunologist expert
June 3, 2009
Gordon Lecture
Leon Gordis, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health
lecture title TBA; expert on epidemiology of childhood and chronic diseases
June 10, 2009
Pittman Lecture
Susan Lindquist, MIT Whitehead Institute
lecture title TBA; expert on protein folding
June 17, 2009
Director's Lecture #3
Huda Zoghbi, HHMI Investigator, Baylor College of Medicine
Neurobiology of Rett Syndrome and Related Disorders
June 24, 2009 Karen Hsiao Ashe, Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience, University of Minnesota
"Molecular Mechanisms of Memory Loss in Alzheimer's Disease"

Note that two speakers --- John Rich of Drexel University and Stefan Hell of Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry --- have not yet been scheduled and will likely speak on a non-Wednesday in the spring.




Continuing Medical Education (CME) activities offered by NIH are jointly sponsored in partnership with The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Office of CME.

The WALS is intended for advanced students and practitioners in biomedical fields, healthcare professionals, and doctoral-level scientists who seek to update and broaden their understanding of contemporary biomedical research and the environment in which it is conducted.

Activity Description: The Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series provides a mechanism to stay abreast of state-of-the-art biomedical and health research.

Intended Audience: All physicians, allied health professionals and non-clinical scientists, as well as the general public, are invited to attend the Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series.

Objectives: After attending the activity, participants will be able to: (1) define options, alternatives, and new practices that will guide the conduct of research; (2) evaluate practical information presented about laboratory, clinical, and population-based research principles based on state-of-the-art scientific discovery and achievements; and (3) analyze information and opportunities to increase and improve collaboration among investigators and move scientific frontiers forward.

Accreditation Statement: This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education through the joint sponsorship of The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health. The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

Credit Designation Statement: The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine designates this educational activity for a maximum of 45 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits. Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Policy on Speaker and Provider Disclosure: It is the policy of The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine that the speaker and provider disclose real or apparent conflicts of interest relating to the topics of this educational activity, and also disclose discussions of unlabeled/unapproved uses of drugs or devices during their presentation(s). The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine OCME has established policies in place that will identify and resolve all conflicts of interest prior to this educational activity. Detailed disclosure will be made in the activity handout materials.


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This page was last updated on August 13, 2008, by Christopher Wanjek, Director of Communications, NIH Office of Intramural Research.