NIH Director’s Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series

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The NIH Director’s Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series, colloquially known as WALS, is the highest-profile lecture program at the NIH. Lectures are held on most Wednesdays from September through June from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. ET in Lipsett Amphitheater, Building 10, on the NIH Bethesda campus.

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A Retrotransposon in Cancer: The Marker and the Mutator

Kathleen H. Burns, M.D., Ph.D.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: Harvard Medical School
Wednesday, October 15, 2025 at 2 p.m. ET

Our genome is replete with repetitive DNAs, many of which are accumulated self-propagating sequences. Long interspersed element-1 (LINE-1,L1) retrotransposons dominate this activity today, making copies of themselves by first being transcribed to RNA and then reverse transcribed to cDNA integrated into the genome. Increased L1 activity is a hallmark of cancers, and L1 insertions can act as driving mutations in tumorigenesis. L1 encodes a bicistronic RNA. The first of its open reading frames (ORFs) encodes ORF1 protein (ORF1p), which forms an RNA-binding homotrimer.

Hiding in Plain Sight: The Opportunity to Dramatically Reduce Cigarette Smoking and Chronic Disease in America

Andrew Hyland, PhD
Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center
Wednesday, October 22, 2025 at 2 p.m. ET

Andrew Hyland from the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York will describe cigarette use patterns over time, present research identifying cigarette smoking as a major contributor to chronic disease and describe factors increase our understanding why people smoke and what reduces cigarette smoking in the population. He will also highlight the PATH Study, a key component of the national data collection infrastructure, that has made significant scientific advances to understand the nature of tobacco use and its impacts.

The TGFb Superfamily – How Understanding Mechanism Leads to Therapeutic Opportunities

Tom B Thompson , PhD
University of Cincinnati College of Medicine
Wednesday, October 29, 2025 at 2 p.m. ET

The focus of my laboratory is divided into two areas of investigation where I study the structural and functional aspects of TGFbeta family signaling and regulation along with the structures of apolipoproteins and how this relates to HDL particles and other related biological functions. The laboratory uses a combination of structural techniques including X-ray crstallography, small angle X-ray scattering coupled with biophysical and biochemical experiments.