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ORVALLIS - Rita Colwell, former director of the National Science Foundation, will present the John L. Fryer Memorial Lecture on Dec. 10 at Oregon State University, honoring a pioneer of fish disease research who died last August.

Colwell was a close friend of Fryer and his family, and will speak on "The Future of Marine Biotechnology."

Her presentation will be at 4 p.m. at the LaSells Stewart Center on the OSU campus, and is free and open to the public. It will be followed by a reception featuring remarks by family, military and academic colleagues. People wishing to attend the reception, which will include food and beverages, are asked to send an RSVP by Nov. 24 to Jerri Bartholomew at this email address: [email protected].

Prior to the lecture and reception, a building dedication ceremony will be held at 1:30 p.m. at the Salmon Disease Laboratory, 34347 N.E. Electric Road in Corvallis. Fryer received his doctorate from OSU in 1964, was on the OSU faculty for more than 40 years and served a long tenure as chair of its Department of Microbiology. He was widely recognized at the university and internationally for his work on the infectious diseases of fish, especially salmon in the Pacific Northwest.

His research helped train generations of students and covered many fields. He isolated viruses that were serious threats to salmon health, developed vaccines, improved salmon aquaculture and characterized important disease-causing organisms.