Take a seat in the front row

And listen as some of the world’s foremost scientists introduce you to the innovative medicines and treatments headed your way from Scripps Research. Each one-hour virtual lecture is free and can be enjoyed from the comfort of your home.

Ingenuity…
experience…
persistence

The world’s preeminent scientists at Scripps Research package these traits with their endless curiosity on a quest to solve the challenges of modern human health.

You’re invited to join them on their journeys. In this fourth season of our popular Front Row Lecture Series, you’ll discover how scientists are mapping the secret complexity of tumors to help defeat aggressive cancers. You’ll learn how studying the machinery of brain cells may lead to new treatments for vision loss. And you’ll be intrigued by a novel strategy to prevent or even reverse the chronic inflammation that underlies diseases of the skin, intestines or joints.

Explore the full menu of this season’s lecture topics below, then mark your calendar for a scientific adventure.

  • Mirror molecules: How the science of mirror molecules—chirality—will help in the search for better drugs and distant aliens

    Wednesday, June 16, 2021

    1:00 p.m. PT/4:00 p.m. ET

     
    Many of the building blocks of life exist in two forms that are mirror images of one another – a phenomenon known as chirality that is necessary for life to exist at all. How chirality arose eons ago is one of the great mysteries of science. What served as the first template – back before DNA, RNA and proteins, before the origin of life, in the prebiotic soup, when the nascent building blocks for life were first being formed? What process was responsible for directing amino acids to turn left, and sugars to turn right? In her Front Row lecture, Donna Blackmond, PhD, will share how deciphering the origins of chirality can help scientists design and develop safer, modern pharmaceuticals and in the search for life on other planets. 
     
    Donna Blackmond, PhD

    Donna Blackmond, PhD

    Co-Chair and Professor
    Department of Chemistry
    Scripps Research

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Lectures