Keynote series to feature three distinguished speakers

Seattle-Three keynote speakers, including two Nobel laureates, will present lectures during the annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) May 5 to 9 at the Washington State Convention Center.

This year, the ARVO/Alcon Keynote Series will include Oliver Smithies, DPhil, Roger Tsien, PhD, and Christopher Murray, MD, DPhil.

Dr. Smithies, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is a 2007 Nobel laureate in Physiology/Medicine. His lecture, “On Being a Scientist for 60 years,” will present highlights from his “deeply satisfying life in science,” which includes his co-discovery of homologous DNA recombination, a technique to introduce DNA material in cells. His research has led to the creation of “designer mice,” which replicate human disease such as cystic fibrosis and high blood pressure and “knock-out mice,” which have become commonplace in biomedical research. His lecture will take place Sunday, May 5, 3 to 4:30 p.m.

Dr. Tsien, of the University of California, San Diego, will present “Engineering Phototransducing Molecules for Fun and Profit,” a closer look at molecules that enable us to photostimulate biochemical pathways in living cells and tissues, as well as possible challenges investigators face and examples of successes and failures within his experience. He was awarded a Nobel Prize in 2008 for his discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein with two other chemists. Dr. Tsien’s lecture will be held Tuesday, May 7, 5:30 to 6:45 p.m.

Dr. Murray is a scholar in global health and public health at the University of Washington, Seattle, and the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. His lecture, “Global Burden of Disease Study 2010: Key Findings and Implications for Vision Research” will discuss the study with a focus on vision loss in the context of the other diseases, and injuries and risk factors that were studied to demonstrate this impairment’s global impact over the past two decades and what it means for the future. Dr. Murray will present Thursday, May 9, 2 to 3:15 p.m.

For more information about the ARVO 2013 annual meeting, visit www.arvo.org/am.