Nobel winner will present his research

Nobel Laureate Eric Wieschaus, a biology professor at Princeton University, will speak this Friday at 3:45 in Room 103 of the Bryan Research building. His speech is part of Friday's Graduate Student Symposium in the Biological Sciences, which will also highlight a variety of graduate students' works.

Wieschaus, the event's keynote speaker, will discuss his lab's current research relating to a tumor suppressor gene called APC, said Duke Assistant Professor of Zoology Rick Fehon.

Wieschaus shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Eric Lewis, a professor at the California Institute of Technology and Christiane Nusslein-Volhard, a professor at the Max-Planck-Institut für Entwicklungsbiologie in Germany.

The three were awarded the prize "for their discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development," explained the Oct. 9, 1995, press release from the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute, which grants the prestigious physiology or medicine award.

Nusslein-Volhard and Wieschaus performed their initial prize-winning research at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, where they were both researchers in the late 1970s. The pair was interested in doing work on the fruit fly because of its fast embryonic development; within nine days, the fruit fly's fertilized egg develops into a complete fly.

Using the fruit fly-whose growth principles apply to higher organisms-Nusslein-Volhard and Wieschaus identified a group of genes that are of key importance in determining the body plan and the formation of body segments. Lewis learned that these genes are arranged in the same order on the chromosome as the body segments they controlled. The first set of genes controlled formations in the head region of the fruit fly, the middle set controlled the abdominal structures and the final set controlled tail structures.

"Together these three scientists have achieved a breakthrough that will help explain congenital malformations in [humans]," the press release said.

Graduate student Dan Cox, Wieschaus' host during his visit, said Friday's events will begin at 8:30 a.m. with opening remarks by Dr. Gordon Hammes, vice chancellor for academic affairs. Selected graduate students will present their research throughout the day and Wieschaus' speech will be followed by a poster session and reception in the Searle Center.