Nobel Laureate to Give Fourth Annual Sayer Lecture, Hosted by NEI

Roger Y. Tsien, Ph.D., winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2008, will deliver the fourth annual Sayer Vision Research Lecture on Wednesday, March 10 at 1 p.m. in Masur Auditorium, Bldg. 10. His talk is titled: “Breeding and Building Molecules to Spy on Cells and Tumors.”

Dr. Tsien, an investigator and professor at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of California, San Diego, was awarded the Nobel Prize for his contribution toward the discovery and development of green fluorescent protein (GFP). His work has developed GFP into a tool used by researchers worldwide to analyze the movements, positions, and interactions of tagged proteins within cells. Recently, fluorescent proteins have been used to visualize synaptic circuits, allowing researchers to map glial territories and follow glial cells and neurons over time in vivo.

Dr. Tsien’s research is at the interface of organic chemistry, cell biology, and neurobiology. He is best known for designing and building molecules that either report or perturb signal transduction inside living cells. Dr. Tsien is currently designing imaging and therapeutic molecules that specifically target cancer cells.

The Sayer Vision Research Fund supports the annual Sayer Lecture, which is delivered by an investigator in the area of vision research. The Fund also supports the Sayer Vision Research Award, a grant-in-aid to a promising independent investigator in the early stage of his or her research career in the Division of Intramural Research at NEI. NIDDK research scientist Dr. Jane Sayer established the Fund at the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health in 2006 to honor her family and the memory of her parents, Winthrop and Laura Sayer.

For more information about the Sayer Lecture, visit: http://www.nei.nih.gov/news/special/sayer.asp.