Sidney Altman

Sterling Professor of Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology, Yale University

September 20, 2010 — 4:10 PM
University of California, Berkeley — UC Berkeley Campus

Add to Google Calendar 09/20/2010 4:10 PM 09/20/2010 6:00 PM America/Los_Angeles Entering the RNA World

About The Lecture A general description of the problem of the origin of life on Earth with some detail about what we know now and our knowledge of RNase P, an enzyme with a catalytic RNA subunit. This is the … Continued

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About The Lecture

A general description of the problem of the origin of life on Earth with some detail about what we know now and our knowledge of RNase P, an enzyme with a catalytic RNA subunit.

This is the first of two lectures presented by Sidney Altman. The second lecture, Ribonuclease P: A Small Step in the RNA World, takes place on Tuesday, September 21, 2010.

About Sidney Altman

Professor Sidney Altman is internationally renowned for his important contributions to the fields of biochemistry and molecular biology. He and Thomas Cech shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their independent studies demonstrating the catalytic ability of RNA. Altman discovered RNase P and the enzymatic properties of the RNA subunit of that enzyme. He found that RNA, which was previously believed to be simply a passive carrier of genetic codes between different parts of the cell, could also initiate and catalyze reactions. This discovery refuted the formerly unquestioned principle that molecules could either carry information (like RNA), or catalyze chemical reactions (like proteins), but they could not do both. Altman’s breakthrough opened up many new fields of research and biotechnology, especially focused on RNA structure and function.


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