Harvard Medical School's Prof. Alfred Goldberg delivers inaugural speech

June 14th, 2012 / News

Harvard Medical School's Prof. Alfred Goldberg delivers inaugural speech at Ubiquigent, Medical Research Council, University of Dundee sponsored ubiquitin system drug discovery lecture

Dundee, UK, 14th June 2012 - Ubiquigent Ltd was honoured today to have Professor Alfred Goldberg, Professor of Cell Biology from Harvard Medical School deliver the inaugural Ubiquitin System Drug Discovery Lecture at the University of Dundee sponsored by Ubiquigent, the Medical Research Council and the University of Dundee. The title of the lecture was; ‘Functioning of the proteasome: From protein degradation to cancer therapy'.

Dr. Goldberg, a Professor of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School, has been on the faculty of that institution for nearly his entire academic career. His important discoveries have concerned the biochemical mechanisms and physiological regulation of protein breakdown in cells, and the importance of this process in human disease. His laboratory first demonstrated the non-lysosomal ATP-dependent pathway for protein breakdown, now termed the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway. They first demonstrated the involvement of the 20S and 26S proteasomes in this process and discovered the ATP-dependent proteases responsible for protein degradation in bacteria and mitochondria. Also of wide impact have been Professor Goldberg's studies showing that this pathway is critical in the clearance of misfolded proteins and in muscle atrophy in many disease states as well as in antigen presentation to the immune system. He and his colleagues also first introduced proteasome inhibitors widely used as research tools (e.g. MG132), and he initiated the development of the proteasome inhibitor, VELCADE® (bortezomib), now used worldwide for treatment of multiple myeloma.

About Ubiquigent

Ubiquigent Limited is a specialist developer and supplier of high quality reagents, kits and drug discovery assay development and compound profiling services to the life science research community worldwide. Ubiquigent's scientific and business interests have a clear focus; namely the ubiquitin, ubiquitin-like and integrated signalling systems. The company has established its scientific and business credentials with both academic researchers undertaking fundamental scientific discovery as well as with pharmaceutical and biotechnology company scientists exploring the potential of ubiquitin cascade-focused drug discovery.

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