Knobil lecture welcomes 2019 Nobel Laureate
McGovern Medical School welcomes Gregg Semenza, MD, PhD, 2019 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine as the 2022 speaker for the annual Ernst Knobil Distinguished Lecture, April 28.
The lecture on “Hypoxia-Inducible Factors in Physiology and Medicine,” will be held at 10:50 a.m. in the Beth Robertson Auditorium at the Institute of Molecular Medicine.
Semenza, C. Michael Armstrong Professor of Genetic Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, is one of today’s preeminent researchers on the molecular mechanisms of oxygen regulation. He has led the field in uncovering how cells adapt to changing oxygen levels and is best known for his ground-breaking discovery of the HIF-1 (hypoxia-inducible factor 1) protein, which controls changes in gene expression in response to changes in oxygen availability. This discovery has far-reaching implications for understanding and treating conditions, such as cancer and ischemic cardiovascular disease, in which hypoxia plays an important role in disease pathogenesis.
He was recognized for this groundbreaking research in 2019, when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with William G. Kaelin, Jr., MD, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe of Oxford University.
The Ernst Knobil Distinguished Lecture was established in 2001 to honor Dr. Ernst Knobil, who served as the third dean of McGovern Medical School, from 1981 to 1984, and was one of the world’s leading neuroendocrinologists whose work has provided the basis for the understanding of reproductive function in women.
For more information about Knobil and the lecture series, visit the event’s website here.