WALS Talks Feature Nobel Laureate Allison, Dyer Lecturer Cooper
The NIH Director’s Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series (WALS) will host the second of three NIH Director’s Lectures on Mar. 11, followed by the annual Rolla E. Dyer Lecture on Mar. 18. Both presentations are expected be held in the newly renovated Masur Auditorium, Bldg. 10, at 3 p.m.
On Mar. 11, the Director’s lecture will be presented by recent Nobel laureate Dr. James P. Allison, chair and Regental professor, department of immunology at MD Anderson Cancer Center. His talk is titled “Immune Checkpoint Blockade in Cancer Therapy: Historical Perspective, New Opportunities and Prospects for Cures.”
Allison has spent a distinguished career studying the regulation of T-cell responses and developing strategies for cancer immunotherapy. He earned the 2018 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, which he shared with Dr. Tasuku Honjo, “for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation.”
Among his most notable discoveries are the determination of the T-cell receptor structure and that CD28 is the major costimulatory molecule that allows full activation of naïve T cells and prevents anergy in T-cell clones.
Allison’s current work seeks to improve immune checkpoint blockade therapies currently used by clinicians and identify new targets to unleash the immune system in order to eradicate cancer.
On Mar. 18, the Dyer Lecture will be presented by Dr. Lisa A. Cooper, Bloomberg distinguished professor, health and health care equity and James F. Fries professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University. Her talk is titled “Deep and Wide: The Voyage to Discover Local and Global Health Equity.”
Cooper’s research program examines the effectiveness of multilevel strategies for advancing health equity in the United States and sub-Saharan Africa. She has conducted observational studies to describe attitudinal barriers to equitable health status and health care among patients from diverse racial and ethnic groups, and to elucidate mechanisms, such as the quality of social relationships, for racial and socioeconomic disparities in health status and health care.
The Dyer Lecture was established in 1950 in honor of former NIH director Dr. Rolla E. Dyer, a noted authority on infectious diseases, and features internationally renowned researchers.
For lecture information and reasonable accommodation, contact Jacqueline Roberts, (301) 594-6747 or robertsjm@mail.nih.gov.