Distinguished Lectures in Life Sciences

• Tuesday, March 18, at 3:30 p.m. with reception to follow in Ryan Family Atrium at 4:30 p.m.
• David Julius is professor and chair, Department of Physiology, at University of California, San Francisco, and 2021 Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine

David Julius, a native of New York City, received his undergraduate degree from MIT, where he worked with Alexander Rich studying mechanisms of tRNA aminoacylation. He then moved to the UC Berkeley for graduate studies with Jeremy Thorner and Randy Schekman, elucidating mechanisms of peptide hormone processing and secretion in yeast, followed by postdoctoral studies with Richard Axel at Columbia University, where he identified genes encoding members of the serotonin receptor family. Julius then joined the faculty at the University of California, San Francisco, where he is currently chair of the Department of Physiology. His research is focused on understanding molecular mechanisms of pain and sensory adaptation. The Julius group has exploited the properties of natural products to discover a family of thermo- and chemo-sensitive ion channels that enable sensory nerve fibers to detect hot or cold temperatures and other noxious stimuli. With the aid of genetic, electrophysiological and behavioral methods, they have determined how these ion channels contribute to pain sensation and how channel activity is modulated in response to tumor growth, infection or other forms of injury that produce inflammation and pain hypersensitivity.

Julius has served as a member of the NINDS/NIH Advisory Council (2014-2017), the HHMI Board of Trustees (2021- present) and as Editor of the Annual Review of Physiology (2007-2018). Among other awards, David has received the Shaw Prize in Life Sciences and Medicine (2010), the Canada Gairdner International Award (2017), the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences (2020) and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2021).

In-Person Event
Hughes Auditorium (Lurie 1-133)
Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center
303 E. Superior St., Chicago

Lecture: 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. in Hughes Auditorium
Reception: 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. in Ryan Atrium

Click here to view the PDF flyer.

In-Person Event
Hughes Auditorium (Lurie 1-133)
Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center
303 E. Superior St., Chicago

Lecture: 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. in Hughes Auditorium
Reception: 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. in Ryan Atrium

In-Person Event
Hughes Auditorium (Lurie 1-133)
Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center
303 E. Superior St., Chicago

Lecture: 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. in Hughes Auditorium
Reception: 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. in Ryan Atrium

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Joan Brugge, PhD, is professor of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School and co-director of the Ludwig Center at Harvard. A graduate of Northwestern University, she did her graduate work at the Baylor College of Medicine and then performed her postdoctoral training at the University of Colorado. Brugge has held full professorships at the SUNY, Stony Brook, and the University of Pennsylvania, where she was also an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. From 1992-1997, Dr. Brugge was a founder and scientific director of the biotechnology company ARIAD. She then joined Harvard in 1997 and was Chair of Cell Biology from 2004-2014.

About the Goldman Lecture

Robert D. Goldman, PhD, is the Stephen Walter Ranson Professor Emeritus of Cell and Developmental Biology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, where he served as chair of the department from 1981-2019. Dr. Goldman earned his doctorate in biology from Princeton University, after which he trained as a postdoctoral fellow at   Hammersmith Hospital in London and at the MRC Institute of Virology in Glasgow. He was appointed assistant professor of Biology at Case Western Reserve University in 1969 and moved to Carnegie Mellon University in 1977, prior to joining the faculty at Northwestern.

The annual lecture commemorates the accomplishments of Dr. Goldman and are a celebration of science and innovative discoveries in cell and developmental biology.

In-Person Event
Hughes Auditorium (Lurie 1-133)
Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center
303 E. Superior St., Chicago

Lecture: 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. in Hughes Auditorium
Reception: 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. in Ryan Atrium

Add this event to your calendar

Zhijian ‘James’ Chen is an investigator of Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. He is also director of Inflammation Research Center and George L. MacGregor Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Science at UT Southwestern. For his work, Chen has received numerous honors including the National Academy of Science Award in Molecular Biology (2012), the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) Merck Award (2015), the Lurie Prize in Biomedical Sciences from the Foundation of NIH (2018), the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences (2019), the Switzer Prize (2019), the William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology (2020), the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize (2023), the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (2024) and the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize (2025). Chen is a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine.