Patrick Brown, MD, PhD, professor of biochemistry at Stanford University School of Medicine, will be the next speaker in the 2010 Senior Vice Chancellor’s Laureate Lecture Series.

His lecture, titled “Pervasive Multidimensional Regulation of the Post-transcriptional Lives of mRNAs,” will take place at noon on Tuesday, September 14, in Scaife Hall, Auditorium 6.

For more than two decades, Brown has been a pioneer in the study of gene expression on a genomic scale. In the early 1990s, with the realization that complete genome sequences were on the horizon, Brown began experimenting with techniques to manage the torrent of genetic information. His efforts resulted in the first description of a DNA microarray. Constructed by micro-printing onto a microscope slide thousands of tiny spots of DNA, each representing a single gene, DNA microarrays allow for the systematic study and characterization of gene expression patterns. Brown has developed DNA microarrays for the entire yeast and E. coli genomes, as well as for more than 30,000 different human genes. His most recent focus has been the use of DNA microarrays to explore gene transcription, translation, subcellular protein localization, and gene-protein interactions.

After his initial experiments, Brown quickly found application for microarray technology in oncology. He demonstrated that global gene expression patterns could be used to classify human cancers, providing new information that could not be discerned from conventional clinical or histopathologic criteria. Using microarray analysis, he was able to define molecularly distinct subtypes of breast, lung, stomach, and prostate cancer, each with significant differences in clinical outcome. In some cases, the gene expression signatures defined using these studies have proven to be the most powerful prognostic indicators yet devised.

In addition to groundbreaking genomic research, Brown is a well-known champion of free and easy access to scientific results. By publishing an online “do-it-yourself” DNA microarray manual, Brown set the example for making scientific discoveries an open resource. He made it possible for hundreds of labs to duplicate his methods and apply them to diverse biomedical research questions. Since then, he has continued to play a leading role in making scientific and medical research literature freely available, including co-founding the nonprofit open-access scientific publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS) in 2003 with Drs. Michael Eisen and Harold Varmus, for which the trio won the 2004 Wired Magazine Rave award “for cracking the spine of the science cartel.”

Brown earned his undergraduate degree in chemistry, medical degree, and PhD in biochemistry all from the University of Chicago. He completed a pediatric residency at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago and a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco. In 1988, he joined the Department of Biochemistry at Stanford University School of Medicine as an assistant professor and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute associate investigator, rising to full professor in 2000 and HHMI investigator in 2002. 

Brown’s many honors include the Medal of Honor from the American Cancer Society, the Stern Award from the American Society for Human Genetics, the Takeda Foundation Award, the National Academy of Sciences award in molecular biology, and fellowship in the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine.