Catherine L. Drennan, John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Biochemistry Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Professor Cathy Drennan of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is fascinated by the molecular world. She wants to understand how protein molecules carry out the requisite work for cell survival. How do proteins transport cargo within a living cell? How do proteins break bonds into order to turn the building blocks of RNA into the building blocks of DNA? And importantly, how can one watch a process that is too small to see? Research groups, like the one that Drennan runs, use biophysical methods to determine the three-dimensional structures of proteins at the atomic level. In this presentation, Drennan will provide an overview of the methods that allow her to "see" the atoms that make-up protein molecules. She will tell you how she became an explorer of the molecular world. Her journey was not straightforward. In first grade, she was diagnosed with dyslexia when she was not able to learn to read. By her second time through sixth grade, she learned how to read by memorizing the shapes of words. Now she uses her shape-recognition abilities in her research to investigate the shapes of molecules. Drennan will share her journey and her research in a presentation designed for a general audience.
Cathy L. Drennan is the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Biochemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Professor and Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She received an AB in chemistry from Vassar College, and after teaching high school science and drama for three years, she returned to graduate school. Drennan received a PhD in biological chemistry from the University of Michigan, working in the laboratory of the late Professor Martha L. Ludwig. She was also a postdoctoral fellow with Professor Douglas C. Rees at the California Institute of Technology. In 1999, Drennan joined the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she has risen through the ranks to full professor in the Departments of Chemistry and Biology. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. Her research interests lie at the interface of chemistry and biology, combining X-ray crystallography with cryo-electron microscopy and other biophysical methods in order to "visualize" molecular processes by obtaining snapshots of metalloproteins in action.