Look: Science2007

Science2007 was Pitt’s seventh annual celebration of science and technology, a showcase of Pitt’s academic strengths in science, medicine, engineering, and computation, and the growing potential they hold as catalysts for economic development in the region.

This year’s theme, “Collaborate, Innovate, Transform,” emphasized the capacity of new technology and contemporary research for driving the development of innovations in medicine and technology. The event featured noted speakers, spotlight sessions presented by scientists from Pitt and Carnegie Mellon University, a technology showcase highlighting recent inventions now available for licensing, a career development workshop for emerging scientists, and various networking and social events.

Above, Carol W. Greider, Daniel Nathans Professor and director of the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, talks with Arthur S. Levine, senior vice chancellor for the health sciences and dean of the School of Medicine. Her research focuses on telomerase, an enzyme that controls the length and integrity of chromosome ends. Scientists think that learning how this enzyme works will help them understand how stem cells and cancer cells grow. Greider delivered the Dickson Prize in Medicine Lecture on Oct. 11.

Below, Mario R. Capecchi, winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, presents the Klaus Hofmann Lecture Oct. 12. Capecchi is a Distinguished Professor of Biology and Human Genetics and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the University of Utah. He is best known for pioneering the technology of gene targeting in mouse embryo-derived stem cells that allows scientists to create mice with mutations in any desired gene by choosing which gene to mutate and how to mutate it. As a result, his work has facilitated the production of murine models for numerous important human genetic diseases.