Dr. George R. Stark will present the R.E. Dyer lecture on Wednesday, Nov. 8 at 3 p.m. in Masur Auditorium, Bldg. 10. His talk, “New Aspects of NFkB and STAT Activation and Function in Cancer and Inflammation,” will explore several topics related to the action of human proteins like NFkB and STAT, which bind to DNA and control gene expression in our cells. Stark will focus on how the expression and activation of these proteins is linked to immunity and cancer.

A native of New York City, he was awarded a Ph.D. in chemistry from Columbia University in 1959. After a postdoctoral fellowship with Drs. William Stein and Stanford Moore at the Rockefeller University, he joined the department of biochemistry at Stanford University in 1963, becoming professor in 1971. In 1983, he moved to the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London as associate director of research. In July 1992, he became chair of the Lerner Research Institute of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, a position he held until August 2002. He is currently distinguished scientist of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, with a laboratory in the department of molecular genetics, and a professor of genetics at Case Western Reserve University.

Stark has contributed to several different areas of science. Early work on enzyme mechanisms and protein chemistry led to the development of the Northern and Western blot techniques for analyzing specific RNAs and proteins. His laboratory has also studied gene amplification in mammalian cells, leading to an appreciation of the mechanisms that generate amplified structures as well as the regulatory processes that prevent amplification from occurring in normal cells. A major project of his laboratory was to apply systematic genetic analysis to interferon-dependent signaling pathways. This led to the discovery of the family of JAK-STAT signaling pathways. A similar genetic approach is now being used to analyze signaling pathways that activate NFkB.

Stark was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1986, to fellowship of the Royal Society in 1990 and to the Institute of Medicine in 2002. He has also received the Sober, Milstein and Coley Awards.

The Dyer lecture honors former NIH director Dr. Rolla E. Dyer and is presented annually by a scientist who has made outstanding contributions to the field of medicine. For more information or to request reasonable accommodation, contact Gloria Hairston at (301) 496-0472.