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SUMMARY:SEMINAR CANCELLED - Bob Darnell\, Rockefeller University\, New Yor
 k and Howard Hughes Medical Institute
DTSTART:20161013T120000Z
DTEND:20161013T130000Z
UID:TALK62360@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Kate Davenport
DESCRIPTION:Robert Darnell is a pre-eminent physician-scientist\, whose tr
 anslational research began with a high-risk initiative to understand the p
 athophysiology of the paraneoplastic neurologic disorders (PNDs).  This en
 tailed taking an out-of-the-box approach to appreciate and focus on the un
 ique nature of these rare diseases\, which offer the possibility of develo
 ping insights into tumor immunity\, cancer biology\, autoimmunity\, and hu
 man genetics.  His lab cloned the genes that underlie the disorders\, whic
 h were used to discover that CD8+ killer T cells mediate naturally occurri
 ng human tumor immunity (Nature Med 1998)— providing foundational suppor
 t for the field of immuno-oncology.\n	Darnell also studied the nature of t
 he PND antigens\, discovering that many of them regulate RNA biology in un
 ique ways.  Studying the PND antigens Hu (nElavl)\, Nova and the related p
 rotein FMRP\, his lab developed “in vivo” biochemical approaches to un
 derstand function\, leading to development a breakthrough method\, CLIP (S
 cience 2003)\, now the gold standard for understanding RNA regulation in i
 ntact tissues.  Recent discoveries have included finding that the position
  of protein binding in pre-mRNA determines the outcome of regulation (alte
 rnative polyadenylation (APA) and splicing (Nature 2006\, 2008))\, pinpoin
 ting sites of miRNA control (Nature 2009)\, finding that m6A RNA modificat
 ion regulates APA (Ke\, G&D\, 2015)\, and that FMRP triggers ribosomal arr
 est to regulate translation (Cell 2011)\, linking FMRPs role in intellectu
 al disability to autism (Neuron 2012).  His lab continues to generate tran
 slational discovery in Alzheimer’s disease (eLife 2016)\, axon guidance 
 (eLife 2015)\, and viral infection (Cell 2015).  \nPursuing these interest
 s in the realm of human genetics led to his role as Founding Director of t
 he New York Genome Center (NYGC)\, his selection as one of an extraordinar
 y group of HHMI Investigators (2002-present)\, in HHMI’s only competitio
 n strictly for patient-oriented scientists.  He was elected to the Nationa
 l Academy of Medicine (2010)\, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS\; 201
 4)\, and recognized with several highly prestigious NIH awards: he is the 
 Principle Investigator on a $40M Genome Center NIH grant\, and recipient o
 f the Directors Transformative Award by Francis Collins (2012) and the NIN
 DS Outstanding Investigators Award (2016).\n
LOCATION:CRUK CI Lecture Theatre
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