Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Dr. Martin Chalfie to Present Lecture on Award-Winning Research, November 19, at Iona College

Lecture Series in Science and Technology Continues December 3 with Presentation By Dr. John W. Butler on "How Forensic Science and DNA are Being Used"

New Rochelle, NY (November 2009) Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Dr. Martin Chalfie will kick off Iona College's Thomas G. Bullen, CFC, Memorial Lecture Series in Science and Lecture with a discussion about his award-winning Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) research  at 12 noon, Thursday, November 19, at the Christopher J. Murphy Auditorium,  715 North Avenue, New Rochelle.

Entitled "GFP: Lighting Up Life," the lecture by Dr. Chalfie will focus on how a biological marker like GFP can be applied to track otherwise undetectable molecular processes and how the use of GFP has lead to even more  discoveries in biology and physiology. Dr. Chalfie, a Harvard graduate and currently a faculty member at Columbia University, and his partners won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2008 for the GFP research.

The series continues at noon, Thursday, December 3, when Dr. John M. Butler, NIST Fellow and Group Leader, Applied Genetics at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, discusses "Beyond CSI: Exciting Applications of Forensic DNA." He will talk about how forensic science and DNA testing is really being used today and point out that the version of forensic science depicted in the television series, CSI, can be misleading to the general public. Dr. Butler will also review basic issues with the biology, technology, and genetics using a number of forensic DNA cases.

Dr. Butler's Ph.D. research, which was conducted in the FBI Laboratory, involved pioneering the techniques now used worldwide in modern forensic DNA testing.

Both lectures, made possible by a grant from the Josephine Lawrence Hopkins Foundation, are free of charge and open to the public. For more information, please call (914) 633-2267.

Founded in 1940 by the Congregation of Edmund Rice Christian Brothers, Iona College is a private, coeducational institution of learning in the tradition of American Catholic higher education.  Iona, currently listed in the US News and World Report's annual "America's Best Colleges 2008" and The Princeton Review's Best Northeastern Colleges 2008 edition, offers undergraduate degrees in liberal arts, science, and business administration, as well as Master of Arts, Master of Science and master of business administration degrees and numerous post-graduate certificate programs.

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For questions or more information please contact:
Dawn Insanalli
Public Relations Office
Iona College, 715 North Avenue, New Rochelle, N.Y. 10801
Office: (914) 637-2726
Fax: (914) 637-2711
dinsanalli@iona.edu