07/07/06

Porter Lecture

Life on the Edge: The Dynamics of Nucleocytoplasmic Transport and Nuclear Pore Complexes
Susan R. Wente
Vanderbilt University Medical Center


Lecture Abstract:
Eukaryotic cells require large protein structures embedded in the nuclear envelope, termed nuclear pore complexes (NPCs), to sort macromolecules between the nuclear and cytoplasmic compartments. This nucleocytoplasmic trafficking is essential for proper cell growth and for transmitting responses from extracellular signals to the genomic material during cell division, developmental transitions, and pathogen induced processes. For example, nuclear transport factors and NPCs are targets for viral inhibition of cell function and mediators of viral RNA export. Cancer cells have been found to alter gene expression by perturbing nucleocytoplasmic trafficking. Work in Dr. Wente’s laboratory uses yeast and vertebrate model systems to understand at the molecular level mechanisms of assembly, translocation through, and regulation of NPCs. She has discovered essential components of the NPC structure and steps in the nuclear import and export transport pathways. These studies have changed the perceptions upon which nuclear transport models are based. Her recent work has shown that a signaling pathway producing small soluble inositol polyphosphate molecules is required for cellular messenger RNA export, and for proper organ placement during development of the vertebrate body plan. This work illustrates how research on basic aspects of cell biology can impact the understanding of human development and disease.

Susan R. Wente is a Professor and Chair of Cell and Developmental Biology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, She has been a faculty member there since 2002. Dr. Wente was previously an Assistant and then Associate Professor at Washington University School of Medicine. Dr. Wente received her B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Iowa in 1984 and her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1988. She was a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Günter Blobel at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at The Rockefeller University from 1989 to 1993. She was previously a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Oroa Rosen at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Wente is an Associate Editor for Molecular Biology of the Cell, serves on the editorial board of Traffic, and is affiliated with numerous societies, organizations and committees. She was the recipient of the Kirsch Investigator Award (2001-2003), the American Cancer Society Junior Faculty Research Award (1996-1999), and the Beckman Young Investigator Award (1996).

Robert Goldman will introduce Dr. Wente.  Dr. Goldman is Director of the Whitman Center for Summer and Visiting Research at the MBL and the Stephen Walter Ranson Professor and Chairman of the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University.  He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1967, and did postdoctoral work at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, London, and the MRC Institute of Virology, Glasgow.  Dr. Goldman's research has been focused on cytoskeletal and nucleoskeletal intermediate filaments. His research at the MBL focuses on the role of the nuclear lamins in nuclear disassembly and in the assembly of the mitotic apparatus in clam and sea urchin eggs. He is currently an Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar in Aging. Dr. Goldman spent his first summer at the MBL in 1963, and has been a summer investigator at the laboratory since 1977. He has served on the MBL's Board of Trustees, was a Physiology Course Instructor from 1981 to 1983, and served as the Instructor-in-Chief of Physiology until 1988. Dr. Goldman currently co-directs, the MBL's Science Journalism Program.


About the Porter Lecture:
The annual Porter Lecture is held in honor of Dr. Keith Roberts Porter, a former Director of the MBL considered by many to be the "Father" of the field of cell biology. It is sponsored by the Keith R. Porter Endowment whose goal is to support communication and education in cell biology.