52
EVENT FORMAT
Lecture
2020
Januar y
12-2 3
Transcription Factors
DESCRIPTION
Mark Ptashne had a good fortune, early on, to be gripped by a scientific problem, gene regulation, that had
ramifications beyond what he imagined. Its unfoldings have kept him enthralled ever since. Mark and his team began
with bacteria, and especially with bacteriophage, and then moved to work with yeast and mammalian cells. They
always sought coherent descriptions, ideas that would apply to apparently disparate cases, regulation of prokaryotic
and eukaryotic genes, for example, although the latter, but not the former, are sequestered in a nucleus and wrapped
in nucleosomes. His goal is to put the various stages of understanding in an overarching context. He might not say
anything that has not been told by others or himself, but he hopes that otherwise obscure connections and
simplifications will be made clear. Where he refers to “we,” he, of course, means to include the crucial role of this or
that student or postdoctoral fellow.
SPEAKER Mark Ptashne
CREDITS 1
Ludwig Chair of Molecular Biology at Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center in
New York City