May 3, 2007
May 10 Science in Medicine Lecture: Structural biology and tropical diseases
Wim Hol, professor of biochemistry and biological structure, will present the Distinguished Science in Medicine Lecture, Structural Biology in the Fight Against Tropical Diseases, Thursday, May 10, at noon in Hogness Auditorium, Health Sciences Center.
As head of the Biomolecular Structure Center, Hol is leading the Medical Structural Genomics of Pathogenic Protozoa project at the UW. His research is focused on protein crystallography in the search of new therapeutics for tropical diseases. He is particularly interested in key proteins and molecular structures from the malaria, leishmania and sleeping sickness parasites, and bacteria causing children’s diarrhea, cholera, and tuberculosis.
Hol attended college and graduate school in The Netherlands at the Technical University of Eindhoven and the University of Groningen, respectively. At the University of Groningen, he worked with researchers Jan Drenth and Hans Jansonius who solved one of the first protein crystal structures and who stimulated Hol’s interest in protein structure and function.
After two years with UNESCO’s Field Science Office for Africa in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1974 he returned to the University of Groningen as a faculty member. A fellowship from the Netherlands Science Foundation allowed him to study with Joseph Kraut at the University of California in San Diego, where he started work on the alpha-helix dipole and on structure-based drug design. In 1977 he returned to the University of Groningen and initiated crystallographic investigations on multi-protein complexes and essential proteins from tropical pathogens. In 1992, he moved to the UW School of Medicine.
The lecture will be simulcast at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Harborview Medical Center, several VA locations, and Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center. Contact Vee White at veewhite@u.washington.edu for details.
