Lasker Award-Winning Virologist Set to Address the 29th Annual Graduate Student Research Forum

The 29th Annual Graduate Student Research Forum, sponsored by the Graduate Student Association in the Graduate School of Basic Medical Sciences, is set for Wednesday, March 22. This year’s forum welcomes noted virologist Charles M. Rice, Ph.D., the Maurice R. and Corinne P. Greenberg Professor in Virology and Scientific and Executive Director at the Center for the Study of Hepatitis C at Rockefeller University, as the keynote speaker. Dr. Rice will present “Hepatitis C: From Discovery to Cure.” 

Dr. Rice was awarded the 2016 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, given to honor outstanding work for the understanding, diagnosis, prevention, treatment, and cure of disease and considered the most coveted American prize in medical science. Dr. Rice and his colleagues received the award for their development of a system to study the replication of the virus that causes hepatitis C and using it to revolutionize the treatment of the chronic disease. Their system, which allows for the replication of the virus’s genome in culture, using human cells, has enabled researchers throughout the world to conduct studies that had previously been possible only in human research subjects and non-human primates.

Prior to joining Rockefeller University in 2000, Dr. Rice was a faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis. He earned his bachelor’s degree in zoology from the University of California, Davis, and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the California Institute of Technology. Dr. Rice has served as the president of the American Society for Virology and Editor for the Journal of Virology. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Rice is also the recipient of the 2007 M.W. Beijerinck Virology Prize, the 2015 Robert Koch Award, and the 2016 InBev-Baillet Latour Health Prize.

The forum will be moderated by Amal Rahmeh, Ph.D. ’06, instructor in microbiology and immunobiology and assistant director of the Center of Excellence for Translational Research (virology) at Harvard Medical School.  

29th Annual Graduate Student Research Forum Schedule
Wednesday, March 22

8:30 a.m.: Registration (BSB Lobby)

9:15 a.m. - 10:30 a.m.: Oral Presentations I (Cooke Auditorium)

1:00 p.m.: Poster Presentations (MEC Lobby)

2:15 p.m. - 3:15 p.m.: Oral Presentations II (Nevins Auditorium)

3:45 p.m.: Keynote Address (Nevins Auditorium)

4:45 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.: Reception/Awards (MEC Lobby)