Nobel Laureate to Discuss Origins of Life, Possible Cell Therapy for Cancer at Texas
Tech HHMI Undergrad Program’s 2009 Haragan Lecture Series
April 14, 2009
By: John Davis
Thomas R. Cech, a co-recipient of the 1989 Nobel Prize in chemistry serves as keynote
speaker for lecture.
A Nobel laureate in chemistry will discuss how research into the tips of our DNA
chromosomes could lead to cures for rapidly-growing cancerous tumors and the possible
origins of life.
Thomas R. Cech, a co-recipient of the 1989 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his RNA research
and former President of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Maryland, will give
an 11 a.m. public seminar followed by the 2009 Haragan Lecture Series at 7:30 p.m.
Both April 15 events are organized by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Undergraduate
Science Education Program at Texas Tech University.
The series will coincide with the birthday of the series' namesake, Donald R. Haragan.
Following the evening lecture in the Allen Theatre of the Student Union Building,
organizers will honor the former Texas Tech president with a party in the lobby. Parking
is free to the first 160 vehicles in the R-11 parking lot on the south side of the
Music Building.
The morning seminar in Lecture Hall 100 of the Biology Building is titled "Life at
the End of Chromosomes: Telomeres and Telomerase." Telomeres are basically caps at
the end of chromosomes with no important genes, but critical to capping off chromosomal
material and protecting it from degrading or getting altered, he said. Telomerase
is an enzyme that copies those caps.
"Cancer cells, particularly in order to undergo rapid growth, have to turn on the
telomerase enzyme," Cech said. "So, while telomerase is good for us in our early development,
it can turn into a bad thing when it promotes tumor growth. Slowing down telomerase
is a potential cancer therapy."
For the Haragan Lecture that evening, Cech will discuss the possible origins of life
and prebiotic reproduction in "The Origin of Life: RNA and Ribozymes." In the 1980s,
Cech discovered that RNA lives two very different lives. Science at the time knew
that RNA serves as an information messenger for DNA of a cell, he said. But his work
found that RNA also can work as a catalyst for chemical reactions in the cell - something
thought at the time to be done only by protein enzymes.
RNA's duality has made scientists wonder if it could even pre-date DNA when it comes
to the origins of life on the planet.
"The fact that RNA has this dual life where it can carry information and make things
work in cells is an interesting hanger to hang scientific information on," he said.
"At the origins of early life on the planet - we're not talking about humans, we're
talking before there were any cellular organisms at all - how did the first self-reproducing
system get started? It seems an attractive answer that RNA could have been replicating
itself, since it both carries information and serves as a catalyst. Proteins and DNA
could have come later.
"That's something that I call a scenario. There's no way to test how life started
on planet earth. We don't have any fossils that tell us what life was like 4 billion
years ago before there were even primitive bacteria. We just have to keep our hypotheses
of what is chemically possible."
Lou Densmore, director of Texas Tech's HHMI Science Education Program, said Cech's
RNA work was one of biology's most important discoveries of the last part of the 20th
century. He ranked it with Watson and Crick's discovery of the double-helix design
of DNA and DNA sequencing as one of the most discipline-changing discoveries of the
past 50 years.
"In my opinion, he is the most important and the most influential scientist that has
come to Texas Tech to speak," Densmore said. "But not only that, he has worked tirelessly
as a major national scientific figure to champion undergraduate research opportunities.
Texas Tech is the first place he will talk since he stepped down as president of HHMI,
and we are honored to have him here."
Texas Tech is the only university in Texas to receive continuous funding from the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Started in 1992, part of Texas Tech's HHMI program
allows students to work with faculty research scientists, providing students with
new opportunities in research and hands-on science projects. The other student component
supports science education scholars and enhances important outreach efforts to help
teachers in Lubbock and across the state.
The $7.8 million awarded to Texas Tech HHMI is the most received by any Texas institution,
and ranks Texas Tech in the top tier of HHMI-supported research universities.
Find Texas Tech news, experts and story ideas at www.media.ttu.edu.
CONTACT: Lou Densmore, director,The Howard Hughes Medical Institute Undergraduate Science Education and Research Program
at Texas Tech University, (806) 742-2728, or lou.densmore@ttu.edu.