07/27/07

Through the Looking Glass: 400 years of Cells and Microscopes
Joseph Gall, Carnegie Institution of Washington
Introduction by Susan A. Gerbi

Lecture Abstract:
The compound microscope was invented about 1600, but cells were not recognized as the fundamental building blocks of plants and animals until 1839, over two centuries later. Why was the pace so slow? During the next 50 years cell division, chromosomes, mitochondria and many other features of the cell were described in minute detail. What happened to make the 19th century such a productive time for microscopy and cell biology? After a relatively quiet period during the first part of the 20th century, new kinds of microscopes and new ways of studying cells appeared with ever-increasing pace, with no slowdown apparent today. How did this happen, when many thought the limits of microscopy had been reached? This lecture explores how technical advances in the microscope lead to new ways of looking at cells, and conversely how advances in cell biology fuel the search for improvements in microscopes.

Joseph Gall is a Staff Member in the Department of Embryology at the Carnegie Institution, an Adjunct Professor of Biology at John Hopkins University, and a Lifetime American Cancer Society Professor of Developmental Genetics. His in situ hybridization technique, developed with graduate students Mary Lou Pardue and Susan Gerbi in 1969, is a powerful method that allows researchers to locate and map genes and specific sequences of DNA on a chromosome. It revolutionized molecular biology and is now used worldwide in gene studies. Dr. Gall’s research centers on the role of nuclear organelles in the synthesis and processing of RNA. He concentrates his work on a structure in the nucleus called the Cajal body, which contains many factors involved in transcribing and modifying both pre-messenger RNA and pre-ribosomal RNA. Dr. Gall received a B.S. and Ph.D. in Zoology from Yale University, and was a student in the MBL's Embryology course in 1951. From 1954 until 1964, he was a faculty member at the University of Minnesota. He then went on to serve as the Ross Granville Harrison Professor of Biology and Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University until 1983. Dr. Gall has received numerous honors and awards throughout his career, most recently the Albert Lasker Special Achievement Award in Medical Research in 2006. The citation recognized that Gall is "a founder of modern cell biology who has made seminal contributions to the field of chromosome structure and function, who invented in situ hybridization, and who has been a long-standing champion of women in science." Among the other awards Dr. Gall has received are the 2004 Society for Developmental Biology Lifetime Achievement Award and the 1996 American Association for the Advancement of Science Mentor Award for Lifetime Achievement. He also received the E. B. Wilson Medal from the American Society for Cell Biology in 1983 and the Wilbur Cross Medal from Yale University in 1988. Dr. Gall is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and is a former President of the American Society for Cell Biology and the Society for Developmental Biology.

Dr. Susan A. Gerbi will introduce Dr. Gall. Dr. Gerbi is the George Eggleston Professor of Biochemistry and served as the founding Chair of the Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry at Brown University. She obtained her Ph.D. with Dr. Joseph Gall at Yale University in 1970. Working together with Dr. Gall and with her classmate Mary Lou Pardue, they developed the method of in situ hybridization for localization of genes on chromosomes. After a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute in Tübingen, Germany, she joined the faculty at Brown University. Research projects in the Gerbi lab focus on the initiation of DNA replication and on eukaryotic ribosomes, using the frog Xenopus, the fly Sciara, and yeast as model systems. Dr. Gerbi has received several honors for her research, including the State of Rhode Island Governor’s award for Scientific Excellence and election as President of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). She has also been very active in biomedical Ph.D. training, publishing in this area and serving for over 20 years as the Principal Investigator of an NIH predoctoral training grant at Brown. Dr. Gerbi also chaired the FASEB conference on Graduate Education, and is a founding member and was elected as Chair of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Graduate Research Education and Training Group. Dr. Gerbi has many ties to the MBL. In 1966, while a first year graduate student at Yale, she took the MBL Physiology course. One of her teachers in the course was MBL Distinguished Scientist Shinya Inoué, and over the years this connection has led her to collaborative research with Dr. Inoué, and more recently, with MBL Senior Scientist Rudolf Oldenbourg for polarization microscopy of chromosome movement in Sciara male meiosis. Dr. Gerbi served the MBL as a member of the decennial review, and was a member of the NIH site visit team for renewal of funding to the MBL Physiology course. She also played a key role in the initiation of the joint graduate program between MBL and Brown University.

MBL Distinguished Alumni Friday Evening Lecture
MBL Alumni are often leaders in their fields and hold positions at every major research institution in the world. We are proud their contributions to science and grateful for the enrichment they bring to the MBL by referring students to our courses, returning as faculty or investigators themselves, serving on volunteer boards, and giving their financial support.

In recognition of the vital role MBL alumni play in the life sciences and in our institution, we are pleased to present the Distinguished Alumni Friday Evening Lecture.