2026 Events: October 20-22
Catherine L. Drennan, PhD, Professor of Biology and Chemistry; Investigator and Professor, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Learn more about Dr. Drennan’s research, visit Drennan Research and Education Laboratories
Schedule:
- Tuesday, October 20
- 11 AM: Context Session: Journal Article Discussion
- Ruth W. Williams Hall of Life Science, Room 045
- Topic to be announced
- 11 AM: Context Session: Journal Article Discussion
- Thursday, October 22
- 11 AM: Technical Lecture
- Revealing the secrets of metalloenzymes one snapshot at a time
- Ruth W. Williams Hall of Life Science, Room 060
- Revealing the secrets of metalloenzymes one snapshot at a time
- 12 PM: Lunch: with students
- Severance 105 (STEM Zone)
- 7:30 PM: Public Lecture
- Exploring the Molecular World
- Ruth W. Williams Hall of Life Science, Room 060
- Reception immediately following
- 11 AM: Technical Lecture
Details:
Technical Lecture: Revealing the secrets of metalloenzymes one snapshot at a time
How do microbes live on the pollutant carbon monoxide? How do microbes split the triple bond of nitrogen gas? When it comes to performing difficult chemistry, microbes often combine a protein scaffold with a highly reactive metallocofactor; they essentially employ a “hired gun.” The Drennan lab combines X-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy with other biophysical methods to reveal the secrets behind metalloenzyme chemistry. In this seminar, Drennan will present her lab’s structural studies of ribonucleotide reductases (RNRs). RNRs use metallocofactors to generate radical species, enabling the conversion of ribonucleotides (the building blocks of RNA) to deoxyribonucleotides (the building blocks of DNA). These enzymes are chemotherapeutic targets and proposed antibacterial targets. Here, Drennan will describe how her lab has used biophysical methods to reveal RNR’s secrets.
Get to Know Me Lunch
Students are invited to meet Cathy Drennan for lunch immediately following the technical lecture. Please RSVP if you wish to attend.
Public Lecture: Exploring the Molecular World
Professor Cathy Drennan of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is fascinated by the molecular world. She wants to understand how protein molecules carry out the requisite work for cell survival. How do proteins transport cargo within a living cell? How do proteins break bonds into order to turn the building blocks of RNA into the building blocks of DNA? And importantly, how can one watch a process that is too small to see? Research groups, like the one that Drennan runs, use biophysical methods to determine the three-dimensional structures of proteins at the atomic level. In this presentation, Drennan will provide an overview of the methods that allow her to “see” the atoms that make-up protein molecules. She will tell you how she became an explorer of the molecular world. Her journey was not straightforward. In first grade, she was diagnosed with dyslexia when she was not able to learn to read. By her second time through sixth grade, she learned how to read by memorizing the shapes of words. Now she uses her shape-recognition abilities in her research to investigate the shapes of molecules. Drennan will share her journey and her research in a presentation designed for a general audience.
Biography:
Cathy L. Drennan is the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Biochemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Professor and Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). She received an AB in chemistry from Vassar College, and after teaching high school science and drama for three years, she returned to graduate school. Drennan received a PhD in biological chemistry from the University of Michigan, working in the laboratory of the late Professor Martha L. Ludwig. She was also a postdoctoral fellow with Professor Douglas C. Rees at the California Institute of Technology. In 1999, Drennan joined the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she has risen through the ranks to full professor in the Departments of Chemistry and Biology. Her research interests lie at the Chemistry-Biology interface, combining X-ray crystallography with cryo-electron microscopy and other biophysical methods to “visualize” molecular processes by obtaining snapshots of metalloproteins in action. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.
Selected Awards:
- National Academy of Sciences, 2023
- American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Fellow, 2021
- American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Member, 2020
- Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin Award, Protein Society, 2020
- Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow, 2015-2025
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, HHMI Investigator, 2008
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, HHMI Professor, 2006
Helen Murray Free
Helen Murray Free, a 1945 College of Wooster graduate and a pioneering scientist who was inducted into the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame in 2000, was honored with the inaugural Helen Murray Free Endowed Lecture, featuring Dr. Mary Lowe Good.
The lecture series was established by Helen’s children and endowed through the Al and Helen Free Foundation. Each year, this endowed fund brings a renowned chemical scientist to campus to interact with chemistry students at a technical level and present an all-college convocation on the contributions of science to the quality of life.
Free, whose research in clinical chemistry not only revolutionized diagnostic testing in the laboratory, but also in the home, developed the “dip-and-read” glucose tests for diabetics. She was awarded seven patents for her clinical diagnostic test inventions, and also helped to develop a product for diagnosing Hepatitis ‘A’ while working for Miles Laboratories. In addition, she provided invaluable leadership in the testing of newborn infants for genetic or metabolic disorders that might lead to developmental disabilities.
Throughout her career, Free has been an active advocate of science education. From 1987 to 1992, she chaired the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) National Chemistry Week Task Force. In 1980, she was chosen as one of Wooster’s Distinguished Alumni Award winners; in 1992 she received an honorary degree from Wooster; and in 1993 she was elected president of the American Chemical Society.
Free has authored more than 150 professional articles, and co-authored two widely used textbooks in the field. Her accomplishments have been recognized in a number of ways, including the awarding of the ACS Garvan Medal and the Professional Achievement Award in Nuclear Medicine from the American Society for Medical Technology, as well as the establishment of the ACS Helen M. Free Public Outreach Award.