NOBEL PRIZE WINNER MAKES RARE APPEARANCE TO SPEAK AT UC DAVIS EDWIN KREBS LECTURE SERIES

Editor's note: Krebs and Fischer will be available for interviews on the day of the event.

October 26, 2005

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — In a rare appearance, Nobel Prize winner Edmond Fischer will deliver a talk as part of the 2nd Annual Edwin G. Krebs Lectureship in Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine on Tuesday, Nov. 15, at 4 p.m. in the Buehler Alumni Center's Alpha Gamma Rho Room at the UC Davis campus.

Krebs, for whom the lecture series is named, is also a Nobel Prize winner and founding chair of the UC Davis Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine. The talk, entitled “Protein Cross Talk in Cell Signaling,” is free and open to the public.

Krebs, who will attend the lecture, and Fischer were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1992 for describing how reversible phosphorylation, the chemical process in which a phosphate group is added to an organic molecule, works as a switch to activate proteins, regulates various cellular processes and then returns the protein to its original state. This seemingly simple cycle allows an enormous number of metabolic processes to occur in the body's cells, such as breaking down glycogen into glucose. The understanding of this process has fostered techniques that prevent the body from rejecting transplanted organs and advanced research in cancer, blood pressure, inflammatory reactions and brain signals.

“Drs. Krebs and Fischer are brilliant scientists, meticulous researchers and dedicated teachers,” said Frederic A. Troy II, professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine. “The research problem that they solved turned out to be the key to a mechanism that involves innumerable cellular processes that regulate enzymes and affect cell growth and differentiation.”

Fischer's lecture will concentrate on cellular regulation by tyrosine phosphorylation, differentiation and transformation. He will also show examples that illustrate how growth factor receptors transduce their signals by recruiting adaptor proteins that interact with one another like Tinkertoys and how some receptor mutations lead to pathological conditions such as dwarfism and non-insulin-dependent diabetes.

Additional information about the event is available by calling Catherine J. Diaz, chief administrative officer for the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, at (530) 752-2927.