MONMOUTH, Ill. — John Widom, chair of the department of biochemistry, molecular biology and cell biology at Northwestern University, will present the annual Donald B. McMullen Memorial Lecture in Biology at Monmouth College on April 1 at 11 a.m. in the Dahl Chapel and Auditorium.

Entitled “Fifty Years of DNA Structure: From Biology to materials Science and Back,” the lecture is free and open to the public. Widom will also present a 4 p.m. lecture, entitled “Chromosome Structure and Gene Regulation,” for biology students in Room 423 in the Haldeman-Theissen Science Center. Persons interested in attending the afternoon lecture are asked to call the biology department at 309-457-2361 to ensure seating.

Widom, whose parents were members of the science faculty and staff at Cornell University, received his B.A. in chemistry from Cornell and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Stanford University. At Stanford, he began his career in DNA research by focusing on the factors that affect the folding of viral DNA.

He went on to a postdoctoral fellowship at the Medical Research Council in Cambridge, England, where he was mentored by Nobel laureate Sir Aaron Klug. Together, they proposed a model describing the intermediate levels of chromatin folding that is still used by scientists today.

Upon his return to the U.S., Widom taught at the University of Illinois, where his students included current MC faculty members Patricia Draves and James Godde. He has been at Northwestern since 1991.

The McMullen Lectureship in Biology was endowed in 1973 by Mrs. Donald McMullen of Silver Springs, Md., in memory of her husband, who was a biology professor at Monmouth College from 1928 to 1938. The fund was established to assist the college in bringing to campus outstanding scholars in the biological sciences.

Released by the Office of College Communications
Barry McNamara, Associate Director of College Communications
Phone: 309-457-2117
Fax: 309-457-2330