"The environment and human disease - what's the connection?" Carolyn Mattingly, Ph.D., Director, Bioinformatics Program, MDIBL

A discussion of the publicly available Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (CTD) being developed at MDIBL and how it will provide insight into the complex connections between environmental exposures and human disease.

“Population genetics in conservation and management” Chris Lage, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Biology, University of Maine at Augusta

A lecture given in conjunction with the INBRE outreach course "Molecular Biology Research Techniques."

"The Genetics of Quantitative Trait Loci in Hypertension" Keith DiPetrillo, Ph.D., Novartis Inst.

The seminar is given in conjunction with the University of Maine INBRE course "Functional Genomics of Membrane Transport." All are invited to attend.

"New Tools for Lobster Research" David Towle, Ph.D., Principal Investigator and Director of the MDIBL Marine DNA Sequencing and Analysis Center

The talk will introduce genomic tools being developed at MDIBL with applications to lobster biology, conservation, and disease.

"Macroevolutionary interplay between planktic larvae and benthic predators." Kevin Peterson, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, Dartmouth College

This lecture will be given in conjunction with Dr. Jim Coffman's Methods in Developmental Biology INBRE Course, offered to College of the Atlantic students. The public is welcome to attend the lecture.

"Shark Tale: a new story about the dogfish--man's best friend?" Antonio Planchart, Ph.D., Investigator, MDIBL

What are sharks able to tell us about our origins? 450 million years of genome evolution is the right amount of time to figure out what is important for vertebrate development.

"Our Distant Cousins: The Developmental Biology of Sea Urchins." James Coffman, Ph.D., Investigator, MDIBL

An introduction to developmental biology and an overview of the formation and development of sea urchin embryos, including some of what was learned from the recently completed sea urchin genome project.

INBRE Seminar Series: Dr. David Epel, Jane and Marshall Steel Jr. Professor in Marine Sciences, Stanford University.

"Strategies of embryo protection: how the act of fertilization saves the life of the egg"

Recently Dr. Epel has turned his attention to how development takes place in the marine environment, especially how embryos resist the effects of such environmental stresses as ultraviolet radiation, pathogens and natural and man-made toxins. Dr. Epel's group is looking at these questions from a cellular and molecular viewpoint, and finding unsuspected and novel adaptation that permit embryo survival in these potentially harsh environments. Dr. Epel has been a Guggenheim Fellow, and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Sponser: Maine INBRE
Host: James Coffman, Ph.D.

Thursday, July 5 , 8:00 pm - Maren Auditorium

Helen F. Cserr Memorial Lecture, Maren Auditorium

Named in memory of Dr. Helen F. Cserr, an exceptional scientist who studied the blood-brain barrier in marine models for twenty summers at MDIBL, the thirteenth annual Helen F. Cserr Memorial Lecture will be presented by Muriel T. Davisson, Ph.D., Senior Staff Scientist and Director of Genetic Resources at The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine. Dr. Davisson has spent more than thirty years developing mouse models of human disease including the “gold standard” model for Down syndrome researchers. She was named the National Down Syndrome Society?s Researcher of the Year in 2002 for her work. In the 1980s, Dr. Davisson created the first online genomic database, GBASE, which formed the foundation for today?s Mouse Genome Database.

Sponsor: The Helen F. Cserr Memorial Lectureship and MDIBL

Wednesday, July 11, 8:00 pm - Maren Auditorium

Thomas H. Maren Memorial Lecture

Dr. Oliver Smithies, Excellence Professor, University of North Carolina; National Academy Member

Oliver Smithies, Ph.D. will deliver the seventeenth annual Thomas H. Maren Memorial Lectureship. Dr. Smithies research interests include the construction of animal models of complex human genetic diseases to facilitate better studies of their genetics and the resultant pathology and to help develop new modes of treatment, including gene therapy. His major effort currently is on hypertension and on hemoglobinopathies.

Sponsor: The Maren Foundation and MDIBL
Host: John N. Forrest, Jr., MD

William B. Kinter Memorial Lecture

Dr. Bruce A. Stanton, Director, Dartmouth Lung Biology Center and Associate Director, Dartmouth Center for the Environmental Health Sciences will present the 25th Annual William B. Kinter Memorial Lecture, the keynote address of the 2007 Environmental Health Sciences Symposium at MDIBL.

The twenty-fifth annual lecture is in memory of Dr. William B. Kinter, an MDIBL scientific investigator for fifteen years whose interest in the effects of toxic compounds in the environment was instrumental in shaping this branch of research at MDIBL.

Sponsor: NIEHS Center for Membrane Toxicity Studies at MDIBL and Kinter Lectureship
Host: James L. Boyer, MD

The Fifteenth John W. Boylan Memorial Lecture

The thirteenth annual lecture is named in memory of Dr. John W. Boylan, a distinguished pioneer in renal experimental medicine, professor of medicine and physiology, and author of many papers on kidney function in marine vertebrates. Dr. Boylan began his work at MDIBL in 1959 and continued in active research until his retirement in 1986.

This year’s speaker is Thomas R. Cech, Ph.D., President of Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a molecular biologist who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1989 for research on RNA’s enzyme activity. The title of his talk is “RNA Enzymes and the Origins of Life.”

Sponsor: MDIBL and the Boylan Foundation

The eighteenth annual Lewis Science Lecture

Named in memory of the late Dr. Jessica H. Lewis, a lifelong member of the scientific community at MDIBL, the eighth annual Lewis Science Lecture will be presented by Pamela J. Hines, Ph.D. Dr. Hines is a senior editor at Science, the international weekly journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She is an expert in the field of stem cell research, and has expanded Science's leadership role in highlighting developmental neurobiology, developmental biology, and plant sciences.

Sponsor: MDIBL and Margaret Lewis