Professor Ka Yee Lee (Department of Chemistry, University of Chicago) gave the 9th annual Carolyn and Charles Knobler Lecture on April 7, 2025.
The well-attended lecture, entitled “Lipid-Protein Interactions at Membrane Surfaces: From Alpha-Synuclein to Immunological Response”, was followed by a question-and-answer period and then by a reception. Select photos from the event are below and a photo gallery can be viewed here.
The Carolyn and Charles Knobler Lecture is an endowed lecture series made possible by the strong support of alumni, colleagues, and friends of the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry.
In his welcoming remarks, Professor Bill Gelbart paid tribute to the five decades of extraordinary research, teaching, and service contributions of Carolyn and Charles “Chuck” Knobler. He also enumerated some of the important research achievements of the speaker, Professor Ka Yee Lee, who is known for her fundamental studies of lipid monolayers and bilayers, and of lipid–protein interactions at surfaces, especially in the context of biological phenomena.
A faculty member at the University of Chicago, Lee is Interim Dean of the Division of the Physical Sciences and the David Lee Shillinglaw Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Chemistry, the James Franck Institute, the Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, and the College.
About the Carolyn and Charles Knobler Lecture
The Carolyn and Charles Knobler Lectures are made possible by the strong support of alumni, colleagues, and friends. The lecture honors Prof. Charles “Chuck” Knobler and his wife Dr. Carolyn Knobler (pictured left) who have been extraordinary contributors to the science, life, and spirit of the UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry for over more than five decades.
The inaugural Carolyn and Charles Knobler Lecture took place on January 12, 2015 with a lecture by Prof. Donald Hilvert (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich) on the rational design of protein cages. The 2016 lecture was by Prof. Sharon Glotzer (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) on novel phases of colloids and nanoparticles, the 2017 lecture was by Prof. Michael Hagan (Brandeis University) on the physics of viral self-assembly, the 2018 lecture was by Prof. Jean-François Joanny (ESPCI Paris and Institut Curie Paris) on the physics of tissue monolayers and incipient tumors, the 2019 lecture was by Prof. Daan Frenkel (University of Cambridge), on generalizations of the statistical definition of entropy to include out-of-equilibrium systems, the 2020 lecture was by Professor Bogdan Dragnea (Indiana University at Bloomington) on super-radiance and other coherent emission effects involving viral capsids, and the 2023 lecture was by Professor Vinothan Manoharan (Department of Physics, Harvard University) on the self-assembly of simple RNA viruses. The 2024 lecture was by Professor Douglas Rees (Roscoe Gilkey Dickinson Professor of Chemistry, California Institute of Technology). Due to the pandemic, there were no lectures in 2021 and 2022.
Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penny@chem.ucla.edu.
