Nobel laureate to speak at fall URI conference

SOUTH KINGSTOWN –Nobel Prize winner Thomas Steitz will speak on Sept. 30 as part of a three-day international pharmaceutical conference at the University of Rhode Island.
The conference is being held in conjunction with the grand opening of the new College of Pharmacy building.
The conference is the largest of its kind held at URI, according to Navindra Seeram, assistant professor of biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences and director of the Bioactive Botanical Research Laboratory.
Steitz, the Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry and professor of chemistry at Yale University, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2009.
“The Northeast corridor of the United States is the center of pharmaceutical science research and industry, and so this is an ideal location for a program of this type,” Seeram said. “The participation of some of the world’s leading biomedical scientists, including Yale’s professor Steitz, is an indication of the high regard they have for research going on at URI’s College of Pharmacy.” &#8226