Lee Hartwell, professor of genome sciences and president and director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, will give the UW's 28th Annual Faculty Lecture at 7:30 P.M. Wednesday, March 3, in 130 Kane Hall.

The Nobel laureate will discuss basic scientific research, as well as his work examining yeast cells as models for how other cells reproduce in both normal and cancerous situations. His presentation is titled Medical Research: the Agony and the Ecstasy.

After receiving a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, completing postdoctoral work at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and working at the University of California, Irvine, Hartwell joined the UW genetics faculty in 1968. In 1996 he joined the FHCRC, and became president and director of the center in 1997.

Hartwell was awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 2001 for his work identifying "checkpoint" genes, the genes that notice when mistakes have been made during cellular reproduction and halt cell division so that repairs can take place. These alterations in cell reproduction are similar in both yeasts and human cells, and are frequently the beginning of cancers.