VCR's Distinguished Lecture Series
The VCR's Distinguished Lecture Series was created in an effort to educate and help the research community stay abreast on the world’s most pressing research topics.
The series brings nationally and internationally prominent speakers to present on topics of interest to a broad range of disciplines and departments. Invited lecturers typically spend two or three days on UTHSC's Memphis campus, delivering a scientific lecture and meeting with faculty and staff to share ideas and foster collaboration in education, research and entrepreneurial ventures.
All lectures will be in the Freeman Auditorium (930 Madison Avenue, 3rd Floor). Light refreshments served.
The VCR Distinguished Lecture Series will return in 2025.
Past Presentations
2024
Charles N. Serhan, PhD
Gelman Professor of Anesthesia, Harvard Medical School
Director, Center for Experimental Therapeutics and Reperfusion Injury at Brigham and
Women’s Hospital
"Resolvins and their Role in the Resolution of Inflammation & Beyond"
April 11, 2024
Griffin Rogers, MD
Director, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
National Institutes of Health
Alvin H. Crawford, MD, FACS, Hon Causa GR, UC
University of Cincinnati, College of Medicine
Founder, Crawford Spine Center, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital
2023
Paul Whelton, MB, MD, MSc
Tulane University School of Public Health & Tropical Medicine, New Orleans
President, World Hypertension League
Ralph Baric, PhD
William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor, Department of Epidemiology
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
"Therapeutic approaches to control acute and chronic emerging sarbecovirus pathogenesis"
Scott Ramsey, MD, PhD
Professor, Cancer Prevention Program, Public Health Sciences Division, Fred Hutch Cancer Center
Ken Ramos
Alkek Chair of Medical Genetics
Assistant Vice Chancellor for Health Services, Texas A&M System
Executive Director, Institute of Biosciences and Technology
Texas A&M Health, Houston Campus
“The Many Faces of Precision Medicine”
Mitch J. Weiss, MD, PhD
2019
Rachel Tyndale, PhD
Mark Zylka, PhD
Mark I. Ryder, DMD
Scott Weaver, PhD
Lihong Wang, PhD
Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, Andrew and Peggy Cherng Department of Medical Engineering, Department of Electrical Engineering, Division of Engineering and Applied Science, California Institute of Technology
March 14, 2019
Vasilis Ntziachristos, PhD
Director, Institute of Biological and Medical Imaging; Director, Munich School of Bioengineering; Technische Universität München and Helmholtz Zentrum München; München, Germany
"Advances in Optical and Optoacoustic Imaging"
February 7, 2019
György Buzsáki, MD, PhD
Biggs Professor of Neuroscience, Physiology and Neurology, New York University
April 4, 2019
2018
Frederick G. Hayden, MD, FACP
Consultant, World Health Organization; Professor Emeritus of Medicine, Stuart S. Richardson Professor Emeritus of Clinical Virology, University of Virginia School of Medicine
"Advances in Influenza Therapeutics"
December 6, 2018
Emily Y. Chew, MD
Deputy Clinical Director Chief, Clinical Trials Branch, The National Eye Institute; Director, Division of Epidemiology and Clinical Applications; Medical Officer, Division of Biometry and Epidemiology, NEI/NIH
"Age-related Macular Degeneration, Environment, Nutrition and Genetics"
November 15, 2018
C. Robert Cloninger, MD, PhD
Wallace Renard Professor of Psychiatry; Professor of Genetics and Psychology; Director, Sansone Family Center for Well-Being, Washington University School of Medicine
"The Psychobiology and Genetics of Human Personality"
October 18, 2018
Richard A. Gibbs, PhD
Director, Baylor Human Genome Sequencing Center; Wofford Cain Professor of Molecular and Human Genetics; Professor, Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine
"Genomics in the Adult Clinic: Landing on Mars"
September 6, 2018
John F. Cryan, PhD
Professor and Chair, Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience, University College Cork, Ireland; and Principal Investigator, APC Microbiome Ireland
"A Gut Feeling About the Brain: The Microbiome Modulates Behaviour Across the Lifespan"
February 26, 2018
Aaron Ciechanover, MD, DSc
Distinguished Research Professor, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology; 2004 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry
"The Ubiquitin Proteolytic System: From Basic Mechanisms Thru Human Diseases and on to Drug Targeting"
January 16, 2018
2017
Alexander Hoffmann, PhD
Professor, Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics, University of California Los Angeles
"Learning How to Predict Innate and Adaptive Immune Responses"
November 30, 2017
David D. Ussery, PhD
Helen G. Adams and Arkansas Research Alliance Chair; Professor of Bioinformatics; Director, ArC-GEM, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
"What is Life? Conserved Functional Domains from a Hundred Thousand Bacterial Genomes"
November 16, 2017
John D. Carpten, PhD
Chair and Visiting Professor in the Departments of Translational Genomics and Urology; Director of the Institute for Translational Genomics, University of Southern California
"Comprehensive Somatic Interrogation in Diverse Cancer Cohorts"
Oct. 19, 2017
Susan A. Murphy, PhD
Professor of Statistics, Radcliffe Alumnae Professor at the Radcliffe Institute; Professor of Computer Science at the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, all at Harvard University
"Mobile Health Intervention Optimization"
September 14, 2017
David T.W. Wong, DMD
Felix and Mildred Yip Endowed Professor; Associate Dean of Research, University of California Los Angeles
March 16, 2017
Peter Stambrook, PhD
Distinguished Research Professor; Professor of Molecular Genetics, Biochemistry, and Microbiology, University of Cincinnati
"Preservation of Genomic Integrity in Somatic and Embryonic Stem Cells"
February 16, 2017
2016
John Wikswo, PhD
Gordon A. Cain University Professor, Vanderbilt University
"Organs-on-chips, Metabolomics, Systems Biology, and Closing the Hermeneutic Circle of Biology"
December 15, 2016
William Slikker, Jr., PhD
Director of the National Center for Toxicology Research/FDA
"What Animal Models Predict About the Safe Use of Anesthetics in Children"
October 20, 2016
Betty Pace, MD
Tedesco Distinguished Chair in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology; Professor of Pediatrics, Section of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology; Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Georgia Regents University
"Sickle Cell Disease: Novel Drug Therapy Focused on Clinical Phenotypes"
March 3, 2016