Nobel Prize-Winning Chemist Dr. Roderick MacKinnon to Speak at Adelphi on April 4, 2011

Adelphi University is pleased to announce that Dr. Roderick MacKinnon, co-recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, will deliver the annual Dakin Memorial Lecture. The event will take place on Monday, April 4, 2011, at 7:00 p.m. in Adelphi’s Thomas Dixon Lovely Ballroom in the Ruth S. Harley University Center, 1 South Avenue, Garden City, NY. This event is free and open to the public.

Currently, Dr. MacKinnon is the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Professor in the Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology and Biophysics at Rockefeller University, and Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. MacKinnon’s research aims to understand the molecular basis of the electrical system of living cells. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discoveries pertaining to potassium ion channels in cell membranes. His work has provided further insight into the nature of a wide variety of disorders, including epilepsy, heart arrhythmia, and cystic fibrosis, among others.

In addition to the Nobel Prize, Dr. MacKinnon has received many other honors, including the 2003 Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize, the 2001 Gairdner Foundation International Award, the 2001 Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize, the 2000 Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Science, and the 1999 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

He received his B.A. in biochemistry from Brandeis University, his M.D. from Tufts University, and training in internal medicine at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston.
 

The Dakin Memorial Lecture is an endowed lectureship that celebrates the work and achievements of Henry Drysdale Dakin and aims to inspire embryologists to emulate the splendid example he set during his lifetime.

For more information about this and other events on campus, please visit adelphi.edu, or call the Cultural Events Hotline at 516.877.4555.