The Department of Physics at Yale University Announces the 2006 Miller-Breit Lecturer
Professor Steven M. Block
Stanford University
Friday, October 27, 2006
4:00 pm in SPL 59
Breaking the Nanometer Barrier: Recent Progress in Biological Nanoscience
Abstract: Work in the Block lab is in the new area of "single molecule biophysics". Block and coworkers have recently developed a new generation of apparatus employing laser-based optical traps that can exert carefully controlled, piconewton-scale forces on individual macromolecules while measuring their displacements with unprecedented accuracy -- right down to the atomic level. Using the apparatus, they've been able to measure, for example, single base-pair steps taken by RNA polymerase during gene transcription, folding and unfolding transitions of secondary structure in nucleic acids, and the nanomechanics of motion driven by kinesin motors walking on microtubules. This talk will highlight recent progress in the field.
Biographical Sketch: Dr. Steven M. Block holds the Stanford W. Ascherman chair in Humanities and Sciences at Stanford university, where his is a biophysicist with a joint appointment in the Department of Biological Sciences and the Department of Applied Physics. He is also a Senior Fellow at Stanford's Spogli Institute for International Studies. Prior to moving to Stanford in 1999, Block served on the faculty of the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University (1994-1999). Before that, he taught at Harvard University while conducting research at the Rowland Institute for Science in Cambridge, MA (1987-1994). Trained in both physics and biology, Block was an undergraduate at Oxford University (UK), received his doctorate from the California Institute of Technology with Howard Berg (1983), and did postdoctoral work with James Spudich at Stanford University (1985-7). He is the recipient of the 1994 Young Investigator Award of the Biophysical Society and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served as the President of the Biophysical Society during 2005-2006, a professional scientific society with nearly 10,000 members. Block's interdisciplinary research lies at the interface of physics and biology, particularly the study of motor proteins, or mechanoenzymes. His laboratory has pioneered the use of laser-based optical traps (or 'optical tweezers') to study the nanoscale motions of individual biomolecules. His group was the first to develop instrumentation that resolved the individual molecular steps taken by kinesin motors moving along microtubules, which measure 8 nm. His group was also the first to develop instrumentation able to break the ‘nanometer barrier' in single-molecule measurements, achieving true ångström-level resolution, and thereby to measure the basepair-sized steps made by RNA polymerase while transcribing DNA, which measure just 3.4 Å. Biological systems currently under study in his lab include macromolecules such as kinesin, RNA polymerase, lambda exonuclease, and RecBCD helicase, as well as the nanoscale properties of nucleic acids themselves, for example, folding & unfolding transitions in DNA and RNA. Block is a strong proponent of nanoscience and the potential interplay between biology and nanotechnology, but he is also an outspoken critic of the ‘futurist' element of the nanotechnology movement. In the public policy arena, Block has written and spoken extensively about the threat of bioterrorism. He led an influential study in 1997 on the impact of genetic engineering on biological warfare threats, and delivered the keynote address at the annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology in 2002. Block has testified several times before Congress and served on government advisory panels dealing with biosecurity issues. He also served on the Panel on Public Affairs of the American Physical Society and on a committee of the National Academy of Sciences on emerging biological threats. In what's left of his spare time, he enjoys downhill skiing, particularly in fresh powder, and playing bluegrass banjo and mandolin. He is a former monthly columnist for Banjo Newsletter, and placed 2nd in the National Banjo Championship back in 1979.
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