Scientist to speak on inhibiting anthrax toxin

MSU News Services

1/30/02

BOZEMAN -- A Harvard Medical School researcher will speak on "Anthrax Toxin and Ways to Inhibit It" at Montana State University Feb. 7.

R. John Collier, a professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Harvard Medical School, will give the Nelson Distinguished Lecture at 4 p.m. in MSU's Ag Bioscience Facility room 108.

His talk will describe how Bacillus anthracis, which causes anthrax, secretes a three-part protein toxin that aids in infecting its hosts. Collier has been studying the way in which these proteins assemble at the surface of our cells and then how they enter our cells. This information has led to new ways to inhibit the toxin and potentially new routes for therapy and prevention of the disease.

Collier was a member of the advisory panel of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Biological Warfare Defense Unconventional Pathogen Countermeasures. He is on the editorial boards of several prominent molecular microbiology journals.

The Nelson Lecture Series is made possible, in part, through the Frank N. Nelson Fund for Veterinary and Pre-Veterinary Education and Research, which was established through a trust estate bequest to the MSU Foundation. Nelson was a Livingston native who attended MSU from 1909 to 1911 and became a veterinarian in Columbus and later Livingston.            

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Send questions or comments to Carol Flaherty, MSU Communications Services, Bozeman, MT 59717 or email Flaherty at carolf@montana.edu.

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