April 15, 2004

University creates Chemistry of Life Processes Institute

Symposium will be held April 19

The disciplines of chemistry, biology and biomedical engineering have advanced rapidly in recent years, resulting in an increasing amount of cutting-edge research that crosses traditional boundaries.

Taking advantage of Northwestern’s strengths in these areas, the University has established a new research enterprise, the Chemistry of Life Processes Institute, whose goal is to stimulate basic scientific and practical progress in the prevention, detection and treatment of human disease. A fundamental understanding of how molecules work in living cells and organisms drives this endeavor.

To celebrate the institute’s creation, a daylong inaugural symposium, free and open to the public, will be held Monday (April 19). Six leading chemists, three from Northwestern and three from other institutions, will deliver talks focusing on the science of life processes, including biological imaging, nucleic acids and copper proteins.

The symposium will be held from 8:45 a.m. to 5:20 p.m. in the McCormick Auditorium, Room 164, of the Allen Center. (Registration is from 8 to 8:45 a.m.) A poster session and reception starting at 5:30 p.m. on the second floor of the Pancoe-ENH Life Sciences Pavilion will conclude the symposium.

The event officially welcomes Northwestern faculty members Thomas J. Meade, professor of chemistry, biochemistry, molecular biology and cell biology, neurobiology and physiology, and radiology, and Olke C. Uhlenbeck, Board of Trustees Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Cell Biology, and honors Thomas V. O’Halloran, the Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Chemistry.

The Northwestern professors will be joined by Thomas R. Cech, who received the 1989 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his discovery of the catalytic properties of RNA and is now president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Harry B. Gray, Arnold O. Beckman Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology; and Peter G. Schultz, professor of chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute.

The Chemistry of Life Processes Institute brings together specialists from disparate scientific cultures to create an environment that incorporates both “big science,” such as the multidisciplinary efforts required to understand the full spectrum of human proteins, and “small science,” such as determining how the folding of individual proteins affect cell survival. Interdisciplinary teams will focus on the areas of proteomics, nanobiotechnology, inorganic physiology, biological molecular imaging, drug discovery and molecular therapeutics.

Advance reservations are encouraged. To register and for a complete schedule, go to www.clp.chem.northwestern.edu or send e-mail to registrar@clp.chem.northwestern.edu.