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Page Contents:
UCSC biologist receives lifetime achievement award
Friends of the Library announce 37th Annual Book
Collection Contest winners
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May 26, 2003
Awards and Honors
UCSC biologist receives lifetime
achievement award
By Shawna Williams
Harry Noller, Sinsheimer Professor of Molecular Biology, is being honored
with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the RNA Society. The award will
be presented in July at the society's annual meeting in Vienna.
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Harry Noller
UCSC Photo Services
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In a letter to Noller announcing the award, RNA Society president Anita
Hopper wrote that the award recognizes Noller's "many, many seminal
contributions to the RNA field." This is the first time the society
has given a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Noller's work centers around ribosomes, which carry out protein synthesis
in all living cells. The ribosome is a complex molecular machine made
up of both protein and RNA, and Noller's lab has elucidated its structure
and shown that the RNA component carries out its key functions, including
peptide bond formation between the units of the protein product.
Noller has received numerous awards and honors for his work, and his
laboratory continues to make major advances in understanding how ribosomes
work. Noller and postdoctoral researcher Kurt Fredrick published a paper
in the May 16 issue of the journal Science identifying a site
within the ribosome that affects a key process called translocation.
The genetic instructions for making a protein are copied from chromosomal
DNA and carried to the ribosome by messenger RNA. Translocation refers
to the ratchet-like movement of the messenger RNA molecule through the
ribosome, where the genetic instructions are "translated"
to make a protein molecule.
Noller and Fredrick's findings were unexpected because the site identified
as important in translocation, called the peptidyl transferase center,
is relatively far away from the site where translocation actually takes
place. Next, the researchers will try mutating parts of the peptidyl
transferase center to see which part of it is involved in translocation,
Fredrick said.
The RNA Society, founded in 1993, is a multidisciplinary group, representing
molecular, evolutionary, and structural biology, as well as biochemistry,
biomedical sciences, chemistry, genetics, and virology as they relate
to questions of the structure and function of RNA.
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Friends of the Library
announce 37th Annual Book Collection Contest winners
Winners of the 37th Annual Book Collection Contest, sponsored by the
Friends of the UCSC Library, were announced in three categories: UCSC
students, high school 9th and 10th graders, and high school 11th and
12th graders.
UCSC
Photo Services
Pictured here are (back row l-r) Chloe Ludwig (honorable mention, 9th/10th,
Pacific Collegiate), Hannah Hollander (honorable mention, 9th/10th,
Pacific Collegiate), Jessica Ghio (3rd-place tie, 9th/10th, Pacific
Collegiate), Alissa Fyfe (honorable mention, 9th/10th, Pacific Collegiate),
Matt Ferrante (honorable mention, 9th/10th, Pacific Collegiate). (4th
row l-r) Lizzie Erlach (3rd Place, 11th/12th, Pacific Collegiate), Emma
Reimer (1st place tie, 9th/10th, Pacific Collegiate), Christine Hoffman
(honorable mention, 11th/12th, Pacific Collegiate), Lan Dyson, University
Librarian, Nick Forbes (3rd-place tie, 9th/10th, Pacific Collegiate),
Bryan Condy, (1st-place tie, Scotts Valley High School), Brendan Lazaneo
(1st-place, 11th/12, Pacific Collegiate). (2nd row l-r) Bridget Carls
(2nd place, 9th/10th, Pacific Collegiate), Tyler Cushing (3rd-place,
Crown College, UCSC), Casey Cooper (honorable mention, 9th/10th, Pacific
Collegiate), James Sheldon, 2nd-place, Crown College, UCSC), Lee A.
Ritscher (1st-place, graduate student in literature, UCSC), (1st row
l-r) Andria Watson (honorable mention, 9th/10th, Pacific Collegiate),
Robin Simmons (2nd-place, 11th/12th, Pacific Collegiate), Ashley Newell
(honorable mention, 9th/10th, Pacific Collegiate) and Terran Rice (honorable
mention, 9th/10th, Pacific Collegiate).
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