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Friday Evening Lecture Series
August 11, 2011
Lillie Auditorium, 8:00 PM
The Joshua Lederberg Lecture
"The Biochemistry of Inflammation: from Microciona to the Microbiome"
Gerald Weissmann, New York University School of Medicine
Introduction by George Martin
Lecture Abstract:
Miocrociona prolifera, the red sponges found in Woods Hole waters, have the most ancient of animal cells. They respond to foreign material (bacteria, particles, other cells) by mechanisms they share with the mammalian cells that produce inflammation in human diseases: Metchnikoff’s phagocytes. Studies of the chemical messengers released by phagocytes, including prostaglandins, leukotrienes and other potent bioactive lipids have revealed striking similarities in how alarm signals are transduced in humans and sponges. The discovery of liposomes by Alec Bangham and GW has made it possible not only to define the role of lipid structures in signal transduction, but also helped determine how drugs such as colchicine, aspirin and cortisone etc. work. As suggested at the MBL by Joshua Lederberg in 2001, each of these mechanisms was originally designed to cope with microbes and to regulate the organism’s “microbiome.” Indeed, the recent analysis of the microbiome in one human autoimmune disease, rheumatoid arthritis, has provided evidence that Porphyromonas gingivalis, the cause of gingivitis, may be the inciting agent of autoimmunity in human arthritis.
Dr. Gerald Weissmann is currently Research Professor of Medicine (Emeritus), the Director of the Biotechnology Study Center at NYU School of Medicine and editor-in chief of The FASEB Journal. He is also chair of the committee for the Prix Galien, the international award for pharmaceutical achievement. A former president of the American College of Rheumatology and the Harvey Society, Dr. Weissmann is also a Fellow of the AAAS and the New York Academy of Sciences. He is a foreign member of Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and The Royal Society of Medicine. Dr. Weissmann is on the Advisory Board of The Ellison Medical Foundation. He was co-founder (with E.C. Whitehead) and a Director of The Liposome Company from 1982 to 2000. Dr. Weissmann has a longtime association with the Marine Biological Laboratory. He is a former investigator and instructor in the MBL's Physiology Course and served for 18 years as an MBL Trustee. He is now a member of the MBL Board of Overseers. His ten books of essays range from The Woods Hole Cantata (1985) to Epigenetics in the Age of Twitter (in press, 2012).
George M. Martin, MD is a Professor Emeritus (Active) in the Department of Pathology at the University of Washington, Adjunct Professor of Genome Sciences (Retired), Director Emeritus of the University of Washington’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, and a Visiting Scholar at the Molecular Biology Institute, UCLA. His research has used genetic approaches to elucidate the fundamental pathobiology of aging and age-related diseases. Dr. Martin received his BS and MD degrees from the University of Washington and has served on its faculty since 1957. After house staff training at Montreal General Hospital and the University of Chicago, he became a postdoctoral fellow of Guido Pontecorvo at Glasgow University, and had other postdoctoral positions with Francois Gros in Paris and Henry Harris and Richard Gardner at Oxford. Dr. Martin has received the highest awards of the Gerontological Society of America, the Irving Wright Award of the American Federation for Aging Research, and a World Alzheimer Congress Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a Senior Member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the Scientific Director of the American Federation for Aging Research and the Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Ellison Medical Foundation.
About the Joshua Lederberg Lecture:
The Joshua Lederberg Lecture is sponsored by The Ellison Medical Foundation in honor of Joshua S. Lederberg, Ph.D., Nobel Laureate and founding Chair of the Ellison Medical Foundation Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Lederberg's insight, energy, and creativity were essential to the creation and successful development of The Ellison Medical Foundation over its first ten years.
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