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Lake Forest, Ill.- Dr. Joan Steitz, Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University School of Medicine, will deliver the 22nd Annual Volwiler Distinguished Scientist Lecture at Lake Forest College on Thursday, October 18 at 8 p.m. Aimed at a general audience Steitz’s presentation titled “Lupus and Snurps: Uncovering an Extra Step in the Central Dogma” will be held in the Lily Reid Holt Memorial Chapel. The public is invited to attend free of charge.

Steitz is a pioneering expert on RNA molecules, a topic on which she has authored over 250 publications, contributing fundamental knowledge on how our genes express proteins. Her research is relevant to the molecular basis of life, organismal diversity, evolution, and autoimmune diseases.

Steitz earned her BS in chemistry from Antioch College in 1963. That year, she became the sole woman in a class of 10 to begin graduate studies in biochemistry and molecular biology at Harvard, and the first female PhD student to work under Nobel Laureate Jim Watson's guidance. As a postdoctoral fellow at the Medical Research Council Lab of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, England, she made the first of several fundamental discoveries on how proteins are synthesized from RNA (knowledge that is now standard in college biology textbooks).

Steitz is best known for discovering and defining the function of small nuclear ribonucleoproteins (snRNPs), which are found only in higher cells and organisms. The structure of genes in mammals is fundamentally different from that in bacteria. This difference necessitates the existence of a cellular machinery that can splice RNA molecules to remove the junk in the genome. The discovery of snRNPs as this cellular machinery was made using patient materials from people suffering with Lupus and other autoimmune diseases. Steitz's research may yield new insights into the diagnosis and treatment of lupus, an autoimmune disease that develops when patients make antibodies against their own DNA, snRNPs, or ribosomes, the body's protein-making factories. This lecture will relate the story of this discovery and how it illuminates the functioning of genes in mammalian cells.

Widely regarded as a scientific superstar and trailblazer for women in science, Steitz is an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Institute of Medicine. Her many honors include the National Medal of Science (1986), the FASEB Excellence in Science Award (2003), the RNA Society Lifetime Achievement Award (2004), the Howard Taylor Ricketts Award (2004), E.B. Wilson Medal (2005), Rosalind E. Franklin Award for Women in Science from the National Cancer Institute, and the Gairdner Foundation International Award (2006). She is the recipient of 11 honorary degrees, including from Brown, Princeton, and Harvard.
Read more on Dr. Steitz from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute: February, 2006 and May, 2007

Lily Reid Holt Memorial Chapel is located at the intersection of Sheridan and College roads in Lake Forest. The College is accessible via Metra and ample parking is available on campus. For more information please call 847-735-6010.

Steitz's lecture will be the 22st Annual Distinguished Scientist Lecture under the Ernest H. Volwiler Fund. The Lectureship and the Ernest H. Volwiler Chair in Natural Sciences and Mathematics, held by Professor Edward Packel at Lake Forest College, have been made possible by a gift from Dr. Volwiler. The late Dr. Volwiler was formerly Chairman of the Board of Abbott Laboratories and a trustee of Lake Forest College.

Lake Forest College is a national liberal arts institution located 30 miles north of downtown Chicago. The College has 1,400 students representing nearly every state and 65 countries.

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