Nobel winner to meet with USU students
Dr. Mario R. Capecchi, winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, will visit Utah State University on Tuesday, May 13, as a guest of the Center for Integrated BioSystems’ research student program (CIBR Students).
As part of his visit, Capecchi will present a public lecture at 2:30 p.m. at the Eccles Conference Center Auditorium at USU and attend a reception in his honor at the Logan Golf and Country Club from 4:30-5:30 p.m. The lecture and reception are open to the public.
Capecchi’s public lecture is titled “Gene Targeting in the 21st Century: Mouse Models of Human Disease from Cancer to Psychiatric Disorders.”
The Center for Integrated BioSystems offers fellowship programs each year to interdisciplinary graduate and undergraduate students for research, travel and educational support. As a capstone to their year of work, the students invited Capecchi to participate in a series of day-long activities. Different students throughout the day will escort him to various activities, including the reception, seminar and a private luncheon with the CIBR students.
“Dr. Capecchi was invited by the Center for Integrated BioSystems Graduate Research students as their capstone speaker,” said Bart Weimer, CIB director. “His international service and groundbreaking discoveries enable many USU students to complete advanced degrees and make their own discoveries. We are truly honored to have a colleague of Dr. Capecchi’s stature at USU.”
Capecchi is a distinguished professor of human genetics and biology, co-chairman of the Department of Human Genetics at the University of Utah’s Eccles Institute of Human Genetics, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.
The Nobel Foundation awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to Capecchi, Sir Martin J. Evans of Cardiff University (United Kingdom) and Oliver Smithies of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
They won the prize for their work developing gene targeting, a method that allows researchers to disable any gene in a mouse to deduce its normal function. This method has revolutionized mammalian biology and allows the breeding of mice that can serve as models for hundreds of human diseases, including various cancers. These animal models of human disease allow scientists to learn more about the role of genes in how embryos develop, physiology and aging, how diseases develop, and design strategies for their possible treatments.
Tim Vitale
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Utah State University
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