October 2, 2014 12:00 AM Share with others:

By Jill Daly / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Jeffrey I. Gordon, professor and director of the Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, will receive the University of Pittsburghs 2014 Dickson Prize in Medicine during Pitts Science 2014 event starting today and running through Friday. The event in Alumni Hall, 4227 Fifth Ave., Oakland, is free to the public

Dr. Gordon is a scientist whose lab has studied the microbes that live in humans gastrointestinal track and studies how their genes may be linked to human obesity, metabolic abnormalities and child nutrition. After earning his medical degree he did postgraduate work in biochemistry, molecular biology and gastroenterology. At 11 a.m. today, Dr. Gordonwill deliver the Dickson Prize Lecture, titledA Microbial View of Human Development: The Gut Microbiota and Childhood Undernutrition.

In addition to research presentations, a career workshop and a new technology showcase at Science 2014, other noted scientists will also deliver plenary lectures:

-- Jonathan Rothberg, founder of Ion Torrent Systems, Inc., onThe Development of High-Speed DNA Sequencing: Neanderthal, Moore, and You, 4 p.m. Thursday.

-- Stuart Orkin, pediatrics professor at Harvard Medical School, onBringing Genetics and Epigenetics to the Fetal-Adult Hemoglobin Switch, 11 a.m. Friday.

-- Jeannie T. Lee, professor of both genetics and pathology at Harvard Medical School,X-Chromosome Inactivation as a Model for Epigenetic Regulation by Long Noncoding RNA, 2 p.m. Friday.

Jill Daly: jdaly@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1596.

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Pitt honors St. Louis professor during 3-day science event