Since 1980 the society invites a renowned biochemist or molecular biologist for a lecture tour in The Netherlands each year. The Speaker of the Year visits three universities where (s)he presents a lecture and interacts with scientists and students. Many of the invited speakers are Nobel laureates, while several of the NVBMB Speakers of the Year later received the Nobel prize like Efraim Racker, NVBMB Speaker of the Year in 1982 received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1997; Gunter Blobel, NVBMB Speaker of the Year 1983, received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1999; Paul Nurse, NVBMB Speaker of the Year in 1992 received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2001; Roger Tsien, NVBMB Speaker of the Year in 2001 received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2008; Aaron Ciechanover, NVBMB Speaker of the Year 2004 who received the Nobel Prize of Chemistry in the same year; Randy Schekman, NVBMB Speaker of the year 2009 who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2013.
NVBMB SPEAKER OF THE YEAR 2020
Jue Chen
HHMI investigator
Head of the Laboratory of Membrane Biology and Biophysics at the Rockefeller University rofessor of Molecular Biology
Structure and function of transporter proteins in the cell membrane
Jue Chen studies the structure of proteins that use energy to transport solutes—necessary nutrients as well as unwanted toxins—across cell membranes. Determining how such transporters work will aid in understanding the basic mechanisms of active transport. Her research centers on structural and mechanistic studies of ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters. ABC transporters are ubiquitous membrane proteins that import or export molecules across the cellular membrane. ABC transporters are also central to multidrug resistance in many pathogenic bacteria and tumor cells. Jue Chen investigates these proteins’ role in normal cellular processes and in disease, including drug resistance and cystic fibrosis. Chen’s goal is to continue to combine structural and functional work to reveal the molecular mechanisms of these multidrug transporters and the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator CFTR, with an eye toward developing new, improved therapies for a variety of disorders, including cancer and cystic fibrosis.
Dr. Chen has been invited to give three seminars in the Netherlands when the conditions permit it.
More information will be published later on this web site
