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CORVALLIS, Ore. - Susan Lindquist, a member and former director of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and professor of biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will present the 2007 Gene D. Knudson Lecture on Wednesday, May 30, at Oregon State University.

The free public lecture will begin at 7:30 p.m. at LaSells Stewart Center’s Construction and Engineering Hall. It is titled “Simple Solutions to Complex Problems: Yeast as a Discovery Platform for Complex Neurodegenerative Disease.”

A scientific seminar, also by Lindquist, will be held on May 31 at 3:30 p.m. in Agricultural and Life Sciences building Room 4001. It is titled "Prion Proteins: One Surprise After Another.”

Lindquist, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, has been recognized as one of the top 50 women scientists by Discover Magazine. She conducts pioneering research in the field of protein folding, studying biological phenomena that influence the different shapes that proteins take. Her public lecture will describe the use of yeast as “living test tubes” to study the misfolding of proteins, a process that occurs in Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases as well as some cancers. Her research is relevant to the study of evolution, neurological diseases, cancer and nanotechnology.

The events are sponsored by the Center for Genome Research and Biocomputing at OSU. Attendees with a disability who are interested in accommodation should contact the Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President, at (541) 737-2111.