Scripps Research Scientific Board Meets in Florida

The Scripps Research Institute's Board of Scientific Governors convened last week for the first time in Palm Beach County, Florida, where a new Scripps Research campus is planned.

"Members of the scientific board were engaged and thoughtful in discussions about how best to approach the new Florida operations," says Keith McKeown, vice president of communications and public relations. "They were eager to learn about the opportunities in Florida and to help the institute with their ideas and suggestions."

The Board of Scientific Governors—which is composed of 17 members, 11 of whom are Nobel laureates—meets annually, usually in La Jolla, California, to advise the institute's president on matters of scientific inquiry and policy.

In the meeting last Thursday and Friday at the Breakers hotel in Palm Beach, the group heard presentations from Scripps Research scientists. Professor Peter Schultz, Scripps Family Chair who is also member of The Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology at Scripps Research and director of the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation, spoke on his lab's work on adding a 21st amino acid to organisms. Professor Steve Kay spoke on his lab's research on circadian rhythms. Professor Charles Weissman, who was recently appointed head of Scripps Florida science, spoke on his work on prion disease, a timely topic given the recent identification of mad cow disease in the United States.

Members of the Scripps Research scientific board also toured laboratory space on the main campus of Florida Atlantic University (FAU) in Boca Raton. Scripps Research scientists in Florida will first be working at FAU's Boca Raton campus, then at FAU's Jupiter campus, while permanent facilities are being built. Construction of the new facilities is scheduled to be complete in late 2006.

On Thursday evening, Governor Jeb Bush hosted a reception and dinner for the members of the Scripps Research Board of Scientific Governors, community leaders, local legislators, and members of the Scripps Florida Funding Corporation, the state board that controls the state's grant to the institute.

The events were covered in the local Florida press. Headlines in The Palm Beach Post read "Nine Nobel Laureates Coming to Palm Beach" and "Science Heavyweights Hitting Palm Beach." A Sun-Sentinel headline announced "Scientists Weigh in on Future of Scripps."

New members of the Board of Scientific Governors are Raymond Dwek of Oxford University, who is an eminent biochemist; Sir H.W. Kroto of Engand's University of Sussex, who won a Nobel Prize in 1996 for his discovery of a molecular form of carbon; and Sydney Brenner of the Salk Institute in La Jolla, CA, who won a Nobel Prize in 2002 for discoveries concerning genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death.

Other members of the Scripps Research Board of Scientific Governors include:

  • Nobel laureate Gunter Blobel of The Rockefeller University, New York, NY;
  • Nobel laureate Michael S. Brown of The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX;
  • Jean-Pierre Changeux of the Institut Pasteur, Paris, France;
  • Samuel Danishefsky of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Columbia University, New York, NY;
  • Mitchell Feigenbaum of The Rockefeller University, New York, NY;
  • Nobel laureate Edmond Fischer of the University of Washington, Seattle, WA;
  • Nobel laureate Wally Gilbert of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA;
  • Nobel laureate Joseph L. Goldstein of The University; of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX
  • Nobel laureate Paul Greengard of The Rockefeller University, New York, NY;
  • Nobel laureate Har Gobind Khorana of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA;
  • Nobel laureate Aaron Klug of the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, England;
  • Nobel laureate Phillip A. Sharp of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA;
  • George Whitesides of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA;
  • Semir Zeki, University College, London, England.

 

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Dr. Walter Gilbert (left) and Dr. Gunter Blobel at the Board of Scientific Governors meeting.