The NIH Director's 2007-2008
Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series

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

Lectures can be accessed live on the web and are also available on videotape at the NIH Library 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.

For more information about WALS speakers or scheduling, contact WALS Coordinator Gloria Hairston (301-594-6747) or Christopher Wanjek (301-402-4274), Director of Communications for the Office of Intramural Research.

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

September 12, 2007	David Anderson Professor of Biology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Pasadena, Calif. "Molecular Analysis of Neural Circuits Underlying Emotional Behaviors"
September 19, 2007	No WALS NIH Director's Pioneer Awards
September 26, 2007	No WALS NIH Research Festival
October 3, 2007	Carol A. Carter Professor of Molecular Genetics & Microbiology, Adjunct Professor of Physiology and Biophysics; State University of New York at Stony Brook "Tsg101: HIV's Personal ESCRT "
October 10, 2007	No WALS Cancer and Inflammation Conference
October 17, 2007	Marc Kirschner 1:00 p.m. Professor of Systems Biology, Founding Chair of the Department of Systems Biology; Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass. "Systems Questions in Cell Biology" Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic 3:00 p.m. Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering; Columbia University, New York, New York "Tissue Engineering and the Challenges of Imitating Nature"
October 24, 2007 DeWitt Stetten, Jr. Lecture	Kevin J. Tracey Director and Chief Executive, Feinstein Institute for Medical Research; Professor and President, North Shore-LIJ Graduate School of Molecular Medicine; Manhasset, New York "Physiology and Immunology of the Cholinergic Anti-inflammatory Pathway"
October 31, 2007 NIH Director's Lecture	Erwin Neher 1991 Nobel Prize Laureate for Physiology or Medicine for research into basic cell function and for the development of the patch-clamp technique; Gottingen, Germany "The Role of Calcium in Vesicle Priming and Exocytosis During Neurotransmitter Release"
November 7, 2007 The Astute Clinician Lecture	Barry S. Coller David Rockefeller Professor of Medicine; Head, Laboratory of Blood and Vascular Biology; Physician-in-Chief of The Rockefeller University Hospital; Vice President for Medical Affairs at The Rockefeller University, New York, New York "From the Rivers of Babylon to the Coronary Blood Stream"
November 14, 2007	Claudia R. Baquet Associate Dean for Policy and Planning; Professor of Medicine; Professor of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine; University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland "Addressing Disparities in Tobacco Related Diseases through Community and Academic Partnerships: A Model for Fostering Research and Translation"
November 21, 2007	No WALS Thanksgiving Break
November 28, 2007 The NIH Director's Cultural Lecture	John C. Mather Senior Astrophysicist, Observational Cosmology Laboratory; Senior Project Scientist, James Webb Space Telescope, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; Greenbelt, Maryland "From the Big Bang to the Nobel Prize and on to James Webb Space Telescope"
December 5, 2007	No WALS
December 12, 2007	Jack W. Szostak Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Alex Rich Distinguished Investigator, Massachusetts General Hospital; Boston, Mass. "Learning About the Origin of Life from Efforts to Design an Artificial Cell"
December 19, 2007	Arlene Sharpe George Fabyan Professor of Comparative Pathology, Department of Pathology; Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass. "Roles of Pathways in the B7:CD28 Family in Regulating T Cell Activation and Tolerance"
December 26, 2007	No WALS Christmas Break
January 2, 2007	No WALS New Year's Break
January 9, 2008	Laurie Kaguni University Distinguished Professor, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology; Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich. "Protein Dynamics at the Mitochondrial Replication Fork"
January 16, 2008	Lawrence W. Green Adjunct Professor, Epidemiology and Biostatistics; University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine; UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center, San Francisco, Calif. "If We Want More Evidence-Based Practice, We Need More Practice-Based Evidence"
January 23, 2008 The George Khoury Lecture	Carol Prives Columbia University Biological Sciences, New York, New York "Regulation of p53 in Mammalian Cells"
January 30, 2008	Bruce Baker Professor, Biological Sciences (in Humanities and Sciences); Department of Biological Sciences; Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. "Functional Dissection of the FruM-Specified Circuitry for Male Courtship Behaviors in Drosophila"
February 6, 2008	Kenneth R. Chien Director, Stem Cell Biology & Therapy Program; Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Stem Cell Institute; Boston, Mass. "Heart Like Blood: Islet-1 Heart Lineages in Development and Disease"
February 13, 2008 The Mider Lecture	Alan Sher Chief, Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases; National Institutes of Health, NIAID; Bethesda, Maryland "Interleukin 10: Protection From Friendly Fire on the Battlefield of Host Defense"
February 20, 2008 NIH Director's Lecture	Cynthia Kenyon American Cancer Society Research Professor; Director, University of California San Francisco Hillblom Center for the Biology of Aging, San Francisco, Calif. "From Worms to Mammals: Genes that Control the Rate of Aging"
February 27, 2008	Jan Schnitzer Scientific Director, Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, San Diego, Calif. "Proteomic Imaging of Endothelium and its Caveolae In Vivo: Pumping Antibody into Specific Organs and Solid Tumors"
March 5, 2008	Jeff W. Lichtman Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology; Harvard Univeristy, Cambridge, Mass. "Connectomics"
March 12, 2008	Rudolph Jaenisch Professor of Biology; Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass. "Stem Cells, Pluripotency and Nuclear Reprogramming"
March 19, 2008	Angelika Amon Professor of Biology at the Center for Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Cambridge, Mass. "Causes and Consequences of Aneuploidy"
March 26, 2008	David Hunter Vincent L. Gregory Professor in Cancer Prevention, Harvard School of Public Health; Boston, Mass. "The Association of Common Inherited Variants with Cancer Risk"
April 2, 2008	Ruedi Aebersold Professor, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland "Systems Biology: Network of Networks"
April 9, 2008 NIH Director's Lecture	Anjana Rao Senior Investigator, CBR Institute; Professor of Pathology, Harvard Medical School; Boston, Mass. " Signaling to Gene Expression: The Calcium/NFAT Pathway"
April 16, 2008 Robert S. Gordon, Jr. Lecture	Alice S. Whittemore Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Stanford University School of Medicine; Stanford, Calif. "Personalizing Cancer Prevention"
April 23, 2008	TBA No WALS is currently scheduled due to cancellation; Shizuo Akira has been rescheduled for May 7.
April 24, 2008 Special Director's Lecture 2:00 p.m. Lipsett Amphitheater	Apostolos P. Georgopoulos Regents Professor, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn. "Neural Interactions as Carriers of Information"
April 28, 2008 Special Director's Lecture	Aaron Ciechanover Professor, Vascular and Tumor Biology Research Center, Faculty of Medicine, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology; Haifa, Israel "The Ubiquitin Proteolytic System: From Bench to Bedside"
April 30, 2008 The Margaret Pittman Lecture	Elaine Fuchs Rebecca C. Lancefield Professor of Mammalian Cell Biology and Development, Rockefeller university; New York, New York "Stem Cells of the Skin: Their Biology and Clinical Potential"
May 7, 2008 Dyer Lecture	Shizuo Akira Professor, Department of Medical Chemistry, Osaka University; Osaka, Japan "Pathogen Recognition and Signaling in Innate Immunity" -- NOTE, THIS TALK WAS ORIGINALLY SCHEDULED FOR APRIL 23
May 14, 2008	Elliott Kieff Harriet Ryan Albee Professor of Medicine; Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics; Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass. "Epstein-Barr Virus Alteration of Lymphocyte Growth"
May 21, 2008	Vishva Dixit Vice President, Early Discovery Research, Genentech, Inc; San Francisco, Calif. "Regulation of Inflammation by Ubiquitin Modification of Signaling Components"
May 28, 2008	B. Brett Finlay Professor, Michael Smith Laboratories, and the Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Microbiology and Immunology, University of British Columbia Lecture Cancelled "Pathogenic E. coli: Contribution of the Pathogen, Host, and Microbiota"
June 4, 2008	Huda Akil Gardner Quarton Distinguished University Professor of Neuroscience & Psychiatry; Co-Director & Senior Research Professor, The Moleculare and Behavioral Neuroschience Institute; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. "Circuit Neuromics": The New Path to Understanding the Genetic and Neural Causes of Mood Disorders
June 11, 2008	Juanita Merchant Professor, Department of Internal Medicine; Professor of Molecular and Integrative Physiology; The Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan "The Role of Sonic Hedgehog in Gastric Homeostasis and Cancer"
June 18, 2008	Irving L. Weissman Director, The Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, Calif. "Normal and Neoplastic Stem Cells"
June 25, 2008	Fiona Powrie "TBA"

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.

The NIH/FAES is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians. The NIH/FAES designates this educational activity for a maximum of 40 (i.e. a maximum of 1 credit per lecture) AMA PRA Category 1Credits. Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity. The educational objective for this activity is to enable participants to identify key questions in each speaker's area of investigation and to identify approaches used to answer these questions.

This page was last updated on May 9, 2008.