{"id":73344,"date":"2017-10-12T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-10-12T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/geneticist-2009-nobel-prize-laureate-jack-szostak-to-speak-oct-17-at-uri\/"},"modified":"2017-10-12T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-10-12T00:00:00","slug":"geneticist-2009-nobel-prize-laureate-jack-szostak-to-speak-oct-17-at-uri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2017\/10\/geneticist-2009-nobel-prize-laureate-jack-szostak-to-speak-oct-17-at-uri\/","title":{"rendered":"Geneticist, 2009 Nobel Prize laureate Jack Szostak to speak Oct. 17 at URI"},"content":{"rendered":"

Talk is sixth lecture of Honors Colloquium<\/em><\/p>\n

The \u201cOrigins of Cellular Life\u201d is the topic for the next University of Rhode Island Honors Colloquium<\/a>. \u00a0Jack Szostak, Professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University, and Alexander A. Rich Distinguished Investigator, Department of Molecular Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital, will deliver the address at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 17 in Edwards Auditorium, 64 Upper College Road.<\/p>\n

Szostak is most known for his contributions to the field of genetics, in particular for helping other scientists map the location of genes in mammals and developing techniques to manipulate genes. These findings play a pivotal role in the Human Genome Project, whose goal is to determine the sequence of nucleotide base pairs that make up human DNA and to map the genes from both physical and functional standpoints. Nucleotides form the basic structural unit of nucleic acids such as DNA.<\/p>\n

In 2009, Szostak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of how telomeres protect the end of chromosomes from deterioration or fusion with other chromosomes.<\/p>\n

Szostak is also credited with the construction of the world\u2019s first yeast artificial chromosome, which has helped scientists map the location of genes in mammals. This discovery also helped to develop techniques for manipulating genes and was instrumental to the Human Genome Project. Szostak also developed the technique of in vitro evolution of RNA, which enables the discovery of RNAs with desired functions through successive cycles of selection, amplification and mutation. His lecture should offer insight on his research and many more topics related to the origins of cellular life.<\/p>\n

Titled, Origins: Life, the Universe and Everything, this fall\u2019s colloquium series addresses such questions as \u201cWhere did we come from? How did the universe begin? How did intelligent, rational beings arise? And from such humble beginnings, how did we develop a mind that can ask these big questions? Now in its 54th year, the colloquium is the University\u2019s premier public lecture series, offering lectures on most Tuesday evenings through Dec. 5. Szostak\u2019s lecture will be shown on the web at stream.uri.edu.<\/p>\n

Olivia Ross, an intern in the Marketing and Communications Department at URI and public relations major, wrote this press release.<\/p>\n

Colloquium Sponsors: Honors Program \u2022 URI Office of the President \u00a0\u2022 URI Office of the Provost \u00a0\u2022 125th Anniversary Steering Committee \u2022 URI Foundation \u2022 The Mark and Donna Ross Honors Colloquium Humanities Endowment \u00a0\u2022 The Thomas Silvia and Shannon Chandley Honors Colloquium Endowment \u00a0\u2022 URI College of Arts & Sciences \u00a0\u2022 URI College of Pharmacy \u00a0\u2022 URI John Hazen White Sr. Center for Ethics and Public Service \u00a0\u2022 URI Gender and Women\u2019s Studies Program \u00a0\u2022 URI Office of Community, Equity and Diversity \u00a0\u2022 URI College of Engineering \u00a0\u2022 \u00a0URI College of the Environment and \u00a0Life Sciences \u00a0\u2022 \u00a0URI College of Health Sciences \u00a0\u2022 \u00a0URI College of Business Administration \u00a0\u2022 \u00a0URI College of Nursing \u00a0\u2022 \u00a0URI Division of Student Affairs \u00a0\u2022 \u00a0URI Department of Communications and Marketing \u00a0\u2022 \u00a0URI Department of Publications and Creative Services \u00a0\u2022 \u00a0URI ITS Instructional Technology and Media Services \u00a0\u2022 \u00a0URI Feinstein College of Education and Professional Studies \u2022 George and Anne Ryan Institute for Neuroscience.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Talk is sixth lecture of Honors Colloquium The \u201cOrigins of Cellular Life\u201d is the topic for the next University of Rhode Island Honors Colloquium. \u00a0Jack Szostak, Professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University, and Alexander A. Rich Distinguished Investigator, Department of Molecular Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73346,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}