Memorial Lectures
Many departments host special lectures each year, often named in honor of a former faculty member. These lectures bring outstanding scientists to our campus and often include special opportunities for students and faculty to interact with the speakers.
Schmidt Memorial Lecture
The Gerhard Schmidt Memorial Lecture is sponsored by the Department of Developmental, Molecular & Chemical Biology in memory of Dr Schmidt, a great scientist and a great humanist. A man of charm and charisma, a noted researcher and a devoted educator, he combined brilliance, humor, idealism and apparent simplicity in an extraordinary way.
Professionally known for his work in nucleic acid and phospholipid metabolism, he was as deeply involved in areas as diverse as chamber music and literature. His love of a chamber music style in which virtuosity was subordinate to collaboration mirrored his scientific ideals in which the love of learning was everything and politics and glory played no role. His lectures combined warmth, clarity and intense love of his subject, with occasional quotes from Shakespeare or Goethe.
The turbulence of Europe in the 1930's led to him coming to America, but already in 1928 he had written a classic paper describing enzymatic processes of deamination. He joined the Tufts faculty in 1940 and, soon after his arrival, made a most important contribution to the development of nucleic acid metabolism, describing a quantitative method for determination of DNA and RNA in tissues. The simplicity and reliability of this method played an important role in early research in molecular biology. Dr. Schmidt pioneered work on enzymes involved in nucleic acid degradation. He was a world authority in the field of nucleic acids and phospholipids.
In 1973, the same year in which he was named professor emeritus at Tufts, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Although in poor health in later years, he worked regularly at his laboratory almost until his death on April 24, 1981.
A final tribute to a life of devotion to science and to humanism is the establishment of the Gerhard Schmidt Memorial Lectureship at Tufts, a memorial that embodies so many of his beliefs and ideals.
Contributions to this memorial to insure its continuation will be gratefully accepted at the Department of Developmental, Molecular & Chemical Biology, Tufts University School of Medicine, 136 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02111.
Lectures are typically held on an annual basis.
Dice Memorial Lecture
The J Fred "Paulo" Dice Memorial Lecture is held annually in memory of Dr Dice, Professor Emeritus and a former member of the Department of Physiology.
Dr Dice passed away unexpectedly on January 9, 2010. He was a beloved member of the faculty, a talented teacher, and an outstanding colleague. Prior to his retirement at the end of June 2009, he had served as a member of the faculty for 24 years, including a period during which he served as interim Chair of the Physiology Department.
As an active member of the research community, Dr Dice specialized in studies of aging and autophagy, publishing 76 peer-reviewed articles on his work while at Tufts. He is best known for his discovery of chaperone-mediated autophagy, a degradative pathway involving the import and degradation of long-lived cytosolic proteins in lysosomes.
He was responsible for training many Postdoctoral fellows and graduate students, many of whom have established successful careers of their own in academia and industry. He was an active and beloved teacher of both graduate and medical students and established and directed the MD-PhD Program for many years. His contributions were recognized by a Distinguished Faculty Award.
The lectures are usually held in April each year.
Annual Tufts Neuroscience Symposium & William Shucart Lecture
Thursday, May 10, 2018 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
The Tufts Neuroscience Institute is hosting the 9th annual Tufts Neuroscience Symposium & William Shucart Lecture on Thursday, May 10, 2018.
Speakers
Alison Barth, PhD
Carnegie Mellon University
Jim Doherty, PhD
Sage Therapeutics
Florian Engert, PhD
Harvard University
Lisa Monteggia, PhD
University of Texas - Southwestern
Shucart Lecturer
Flora Vaccarino, MD
Yale University
All talks will take place in the Behrakis Auditorium, located in the Jaharis Family Center for Biomedical Education and Nutrition Sciences at 150 Harrison Avenue, Boston MA 02111.
Registration is free.
Lunch will be provided to all who respond by April 30, 2018.