Jan 27 2025

Livestream: A Conversation with Jack Szostak, PhD

Dean’s Distinguished Lecture series

January 27, 2025

12:00 PM - 12:45 PM

Location

UIC Health Sciences Campus-Rockford, S232

Calendar

Download iCal File

Students, residents, fellows, and postdocs are invited to “A Conversation with Jack Szostak, PhD,” exclusively for College of Medicine students and trainees on Monday, January 27, noon-12:45 p.m. It will be livestreamed to the Rockford Campus in Room S-235. During this session, Dr. Szostak will share perspectives on his education, training, and progression through his career, and students will be invited to ask questions.

There will be a in-person event on the Chicago Campus in Moss Auditorium.

After this conversation, Dr. Szostak will deliver the Dean’s Distinguished Lecture, "The Origin of Life: How did Chemistry give rise to Biology?" to the College of Medicine community, on Monday, January 27, 2-3 p.m., in CMWT 227 on the Chicago Campus and via livestream link.

The purpose of the Dean’s Distinguished Lecture series is to expose all members of the UI COM research community to leading-edge science that involves both the depth and the breadth of scientific knowledge and technical expertise. This series hosts scientists who are leaders in important areas of contemporary scientific endeavors and who have made seminal contributions. See additional information about lecture series here.

Contact

Teresa Johnston

teresaj@uic.edu

Date posted

Dec 18, 2024

Date updated

Dec 18, 2024

Speakers

Jack Szostak, PhD | University Professor and Professor of Chemistry | University of Chicago

Dr. Szostak received his BSc from McGill University in Montreal in 1972, and his Ph.D. from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, in 1977. Dr. Szostak is a University Professor and Professor of Chemistry at the University of Chicago, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. Szostak is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, and a Fellow of the Royal Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. During the 1980s Dr. Szostak carried out research on the genetics and biochemistry of DNA recombination, which led to the double-strand-break repair model for meiotic recombination. At the same time Dr. Szostak made fundamental contributions to our understanding of telomere structure and function, and the role of telomere maintenance in preventing cellular senescence. For this work Dr. Szostak shared, with Drs. Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol Greider, the 2006 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award and the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. In the 1990s Dr. Szostak developed in vitro selection as a tool for the isolation of functional RNA, DNA and protein molecules from large pools of random sequences. His laboratory used in vitro selection and directed evolution to isolate and characterize numerous nucleic acid sequences with specific ligand binding and catalytic properties. From 2000 until the present Dr. Szostak’s research interests have focused on the laboratory synthesis of self-replicating systems and the origin of life.