How far we've come

As president of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, I often think about the society leaders who came before me and how they influenced our organization and the science that we do today.

University of Washington colleagues Ed Krebs and Eddy Fischer are two of them. Krebs was president of the ASBMB when I was in graduate school. Fischer served as an editorial board member of our flagship Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Krebs and Fischer trained many future ASBMB members who have continued to make seminal contributions to the field. Indeed, Krebs’ and Fischer’s impacts were legion long before they won the 1992 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for describing reversible protein phosphorylation.

In March, I will have the great privilege of presiding over our annual meeting — Discover BMB — in Seattle.

It pleases me to share with you that John Scott, who today chairs the UW department that Krebs once led, and Alexandra Newton of the University of California, San Diego, who is president of the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, will host a special event for us.

“ASBMB–IUBMB tribute to Eddy Fischer: Reversible phosphorylation” will be held on Sunday, March 26, and will feature a great lineup of speakers:

• Rachel Klevit, University of Washington.
• Dario Alessi, University of Dundee.
• Smita Yadav, University of Washington.

It will look back briefly on the remarkable discoveries Krebs and Fischer made and, given that we now understand phosphorylation affects all aspects of cellular behavior and that aberrant modification underlies disease, it will look ahead to what’s on the horizon of phosphorylation research, including discovery-based design of kinase inhibitors.

It should be of great interest to students, trainees and researchers from academia and industry, particularly those who are investigating phosphorylation-based signaling mechanisms in disease.

I hope to see you in Seattle and at this event.