Nobel Prize winner to deliver 2012 Rennebohm Lectures

Mario Capecchi, winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine, will deliver the 2012 Rennebohm Lectures at UW–Madison on Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 22 and 23.

Capecchi, a distinguished professor of human genetics and biology at the University of Utah School of Medicine, will deliver his first lecture at 1 p.m. on Oct. 22 in Room 1325 of the Health Sciences Learning Center. Titled “The Making of a Scientist — An Unlikely Journey,” the talk is geared toward students and the lay community.

He will also deliver a second lecture of special interest to those in the scientific community, “Gene Targeting Into the 21st Century: Mouse Models of Human Disease from Cancer to Neuropsychiatric Disorders.” That lecture will take place in room 2002 Rennebohm Hall at 3:30 p.m. on Oct. 23. Receptions will be held immediately following each lecture.

Capecchi is best known for pioneering the technology of gene targeting in mouse embryo-derived stem cells that allows scientists to create mice with mutations in any desired gene by choosing which gene to mutate and how to mutate it. This gives the investigator virtually complete freedom in manipulating the DNA sequences in the genome of living mice, and allows detailed evaluation of any gene’s function during its development or postdevelopmental phase.

Capecchi has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1991, the European Academy of Sciences since 2002, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2009. He has been an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1988.

Capechhi has been honored for his contributions to the field with numerous prestigious awards spanning 1991 to the present, including his Nobel Prize with Oliver Smithies and Martin Evans.

The Oscar Rennebohm Foundation supports the Rennebohm Lecture, which has invited an outstanding scientist, practitioner, or educator to the UW–Madison School of Pharmacy every year since 1955.