A distinguished Nobel prize winner will visit the University of Dundee this week to mark the twentieth year since his important discovery of the first ribozyme and to contribute to a international conference hosted by the University on Ribozymes and RNA Catalysis.
Tom Cech, Nobel Prize winner in chemistry will join 140 delegates from Europe, the USA and Japan to discuss and clear up some of the recent issues in this important field in cell biology. This is the most important conference on this subject for many years.
Organised by Professor David Lilley FRS, Director of the Cancer Research UK Nucleic Acid Structure Research Group in the School of Life Sciences, the conference will discuss cellular molecules called ribozymes.
Ribozymes can be tailored to act like 'molecular scissors' to cut up inconvenient molecules in the cell. Researchers hope that these might act as highly specific therapeutic agents in viral diseases such as AIDS.
Ribozymes are RNA molecules that act like enzymes in that they can accelerate metabolic reactions in the cell. These may be kind of 'molecular fossils' of an all-RNA form of life from which life evolved 2 billion years ago. People working in this field are peering back into the ancient history at the beginnings of life on this planet. Yet many questions remain about the mechanisms of these processes, and many aspects remain controversial. This meeting brings all the world leaders in the field to try to thrash out some common ground on the controversies in the area.
The conference will start on Friday 23 August with an evening reception at the University of Dundee Botanic Garden and will run until Tuesday 27 August at the West Park conference centre.
Professor Tom Cech is distinguished professor and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Colorado. He won the Nobel Prize in 1989 for his discovery of the first ribozyme preceded by a host of international awards for his research.
Professor David Lilley researches the structure of DNA and RNA molecules. He runs a large research froup in the University funded by Cancer Research UK. Much of the work of the research group is focussed on the structure and mechanism of ribozymes./ENDS
Contact Professor David Lilley 01382 344243