Seminars and Meetings

2009 MGM Annual Retreat

The Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology Annual Retreat is scheduled for Saturday, September 19, 2009 in the Schiciano Auditorium of the Fitzpatrick Building (Pratt School of Engineering) from 9:00a.m. to 5:00p.m. This annual event offers the opportunity for students, post-doctoral fellows, research assistants, and faculty members to engage in collaborative discussions as well as showcase current scholarship and research.

Follow this link for this year's schedule of presentations. For further information, please contact Susan Wiley, Business Manager, at 684-3404 or wiley003@mc.duke.edu.

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Thursday Series

The Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology has combined with the University Program in Cell and Molecular Biology as well as the Department of Cell Biology to create a seminar series we refer to as the "Thursday Series." These seminars are held each Thursday from 12:30-1:30pm in Room 147, Nanaline Duke Building. The MGM portion of the Thursday Series is coordinated by:

John McCusker, PhD
Associate Professor
239 Jones Building
Box 3020 DUMC
Durham, N.C. 27710
Tel: (919) 681-6744
Fax: (919) 684-8735
Email: mccus001@mc.duke.edu

Additional department-sponsored seminars are listed here as well.

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Tuesday Series

The Tuesday Series is co-sponsored by the University Program in Genetics and Genomics (UPGG) and the Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy (IGSP). All seminars take place each Tuesday from 12:30-1:30pm in Room 147, Nanaline Duke Building. The Tuesday Series is coordinated by:

Alejandro Aballay, PhD
Associate Professor
268 JONES Building
Box 3580 DUMC
Durham, N.C. 27710
Tel: (919) 668-1783
Fax: (919) 684-2790
Email: a.aballay@duke.edu

Please visit the UPGG web site for a complete Tuesday Series schedule. ______________________________________________________

UPGG Distinguished Lecture Series

The Duke University Distinguished Lecturer Series was designed to bring renowned lecturers to campus to illuminate progress and future areas of excitement in genetics and genomics. These seminars take place on specific Thursdays at 4:00pm in Room 103, Bryan Research Auditorium with a reception following the presentation. The Distinguished Lecture Series is free and open to the public and is organized by a UPGG student committee in conjunction with:

Douglas Marchuk, PhD
Professor
265 CARL Building
Box 3175 DUMC
Durham, N.C. 27710
Tel: (919) 684-1945
Fax: (919) 684-2790
Email: march004@mc.duke.edu

Please visit the UPGG web site for a complete Distinguished Lecture Series schedule.

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Jim McGinnis Memorial Lecture

The Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology will host the Thirty-First Annual Jim McGinnis Memorial Lecture on April 21, 2009. This year's speaker is Susan Gottesman, PhD. Dr. Gottesman is Chief of the Biochemical Genetics Section at NIH, a member of the National Academy, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has made many contributions to our understanding of proteolysis in E. coli, among other research topics.

Susan Gottesman, PhD
Chief, Biochemical Genetics Section
The Laboratory of Molecular Biology
NCI, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland
Seminar: Small RNAs and the Bacterial Response to Stress

4:00pm-5:15pm
103 Bryan Research Building
Reception follow lecture

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The annual McGinnis Memorial Lecture was established by the staff and students of the Departments of Microbiology and Immunology in 1979 to honor the memory of James William McGinnis, Jr.

Jim was born March 13, 1951, in Greensboro, N.C. He grew up in Cary; graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass.; received a B.S. degree in Chemistry from Stanford University in 1973; completed the first year of medical school at Duke; transferred to the Department of Microbiology and Immunology; and was a doctoral candidate here at the time of his death, March 11, 1978, in a canoeing accident. His research involved in vitro translation and RNase III processing of avian tumor virus (RSV) RNA. The Ph.D. was awarded posthumously. His postdoctoral work was to be with Dr. Fred Sanger, Cambridge, England.

Science was Jim’s first allegiance, but he relished excellence in music, sports, literature, and art. He loved philosophy, enjoyed nature, and prized friendship. Learning was exhilarating to him,
and, to this good end, the lecture is dedicated.

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Since its inception, the McGinnis lecture program has brought 31 exemplary speakers to campus, including four Nobel laureates (J. Michael Bishop, David Baltimore, Phil Sharp, and Elizabeth Blackburn), and twenty-seven members of the National Academy of Sciences, including leading investigators in the areas of virology, microbial pathogenesis and physiology, molecular biology, immunology, and RNA biology.

Click here for a complete list of previous McGinnis Memorial Lecture speakers.

The Jim McGinnis Memorial Lecture is organized by a student committee in conjunction with:

Raphael Valdivia, PhD
Assistant Professor
273 JONES Building
Box 3580 DUMC
Durham, N.C. 27710
Tel: (919) 668-3831
Fax: (919) 681-9193
Email: valdi001@mc.duke.edu

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Joklik Distinguished Lectureship

The Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology has established an annual distinguished lectureship, the Joklik lecture. This lectureship will be held in conjunction with the annual MGM departmental retreat, which the invited speaker will attend and present a plenary lecture.

This program honors and commemorates the myriad contributions of Dr. Bill (Wolfgang Karl) Joklik to the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Duke, which he chaired, to the institution including his role as the co-founder of the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center, and to the broader microbiology community through both his research program in virology and service in founding the American Society for Virology and as editor for the journal Virology and the seminal text, Zinsser's Microbiology. Together with the Nobel Laureate Paul Berg, Dr. Joklik was responsible for the discovery of the enzyme terminal transferase. Dr. Joklik was the first to examine the mechanism of action of interferon--the first cytokine to be recognized in molecular terms, in 1964, and recently was conferred an honorary member of the International Society for Interferon and Cytokine Research. Much of his scientific career was devoted to the development and application of molecular virology with a focus on reovirus and vaccinia. Many alumni who trained in his laboratory are leading investigators in biomedical research, including Joe Nevins, who is the Barbara Levine University Professor of Breast Cancer Genomics.

Dr. Joklik is currently a James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and an active member of our community.

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MGM Graduate Student Distinguished Alumnus Seminar

The Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology will host the first in a series of lectures presented by MGM graduate student distinguished alumni on October 1, 2009. The first speaker is Yibin Kang, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University. Dr. Kang was recently selected as the Champalimaud Investigator for metastasis research and has made many contributions to our understanding of the molecular basis of cancer metastasis as well as other research topics.

Yibin Kang, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Molecular Biology
Princeton University
Seminar: Tumor-stroma interactions in breast cancer metastasis

12:30 - 1:30pm
147 Nanaline Duke

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Other Meetings

Mosquito Biology and Biotechnology Conference
We hope you can join us for the upcoming conference entitled Mosquito Biology and Biotechnology, which will be held at Washington Duke Inn on November 23rd and 24th.

Viral Oncology & Aids Malignancy Mini-Symposium
The next Duke Center for Virology mini-symposium is scheduled for Monday, December 7, 2009. The symposium will be held in the Bryan Research Building, Room 103 from 8:30 to 11:30am and will feature three presentations from internationally recognized experts in the field.