Keynote Speaker

Cynthia Wolberger is Professor of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry at the Johns
Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Wolberger received her A.B. in Physics from
Cornell University and her Ph.D. in Biophysics from Harvard University, where she
studied the structural basis of protein-DNA interactions. She was a postdoctoral fellow
at the University of California, San Francisco and at the Johns Hopkins School of
Medicine, where did further research on the structure of homeodomain-DNA complexes.
She joined the faculty of the Department of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry at the
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1991 and was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Investigator from 1994 – 2014. She is currently the department Director and holds the
Brown Advisory Colleagues Professorship in Scientific Innovation. Dr. Wolberger has
done pioneering work on the structural basis for combinatorial regulation of gene
expression, the molecular mechanisms of the sirtuin family of protein deacetylases, and
on ubiquitin signaling. Her current research focuses on the molecular mechanisms
underlying transcription regulation and ubiquitin signaling. Her contributions have been
recognized by the Protein Society’s Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin Award and the American
Association for Cancer Research Award for Outstanding Achievement in Chemistry in
Cancer Research. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National
Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.