Conferences & Lectures :
Jonathan L. Sessler Distinguished Alumni Lecture Series

2007 Sessler Distinguished Alumni Lecture took place on Wednesday, January 24th. Lecturer Professor James R. Williamson of Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology received his Ph.D. from Stanford in 1988. You can read more about his lecturer title "RNA Folding and RNP assembly: from Loops to Ribosomes" below.

Professor Boxer introducing his former student. Professor Williamson presenting the 2007 Sessler Lecture.

Please join us in 2009 for our next Sessler Distinguished Alumni Lecture.



Special Announcement:
On January 31st the Chemistry Department announced a new award which will recognize student leaders. The Sessler Student Leader Award has been created to recognize the many contributions by one of the department's outstanding alumni, Professor Jonathan Sessler, Ph.D., '82. This award will recognize a graduating student who has shown leadership and outstanding service to the Department of Chemistry throughout his or her career. The monetary award will be presented biannually during the Sessler Distinguished Alumni Lecture, with the first recipient to be named in 2009.


About Williamson's lecture:
This lecture will cover the evolution of my current research interests in 30S ribosome assembly from the humble beginnings of my thesis work at Stanford in the 1980s. We have applied the tools of chemistry and biophysics to understand the structure of RNA and RNP protein complexes, and the RNA folding events that occur during ribonucleoprotein complex formation. The first half of the lecture will discuss principles we have learned from studying HIV-RNA –protein complexes and ribozyme folding. In the second half of the lecture, a novel stable isotope pulse chase experiment will be discussed that has led to new insights into the complex process of assembly of the 30S ribosome.

About James Williamson, Ph.D.:
James R. Williamson is a Professor in the Departments of Molecular Biology and Chemistry, and is a member of the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA. Dr. Williamson received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Stanford University in 1988, and following postdoctoral work at the University of Colorado, he joined the faculty in the Chemistry Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1990, where he attained the rank of Associate Professor with tenure in 1997. Dr. Williamson moved to TSRI in 1998 as Professor, and in 2001 he became the Associate Dean for the Chemistry Program. Dr. Williamson's research involves the study RNA structure, RNA-protein interactions, and RNA-ligand interactions using biochemistry, biophysics, and structural biology approaches.

About the Sessler Lectures:
The Department of Chemistry received a generous donation in 1997 from Professor Jonathan Sessler of the University of Texas-Austin, establishing an endowment to support the Sessler Distingished Alumni Lecture Series. Jonathan L. Sessler earned his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1982, working under the direction of Professor James P.Collman and John I. Brauman. Sessler is best known for his pioneering work on "expanding porphyrins".

The Sessler Lecture is scheduled every two years in January, and alumni of Stanford University's Department of Chemistry are chosen as the speakers. Professors Jonathan Sessler (2001), Roger Kornberg (2003), and K. Berry Sharpless(2005) have presented these lectures in previous years.