The James B. Sumner Lecture was established to honor Professor Sumner and brings preeminent scientists to Cornell to speak about broad ranging topics in biological and biomedical Research. 

Dr. Rapoport is a Professor at Harvard Medical School and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. He is a member of the American and German National Academy of Sciences and has won numerous awards including the 2004 Otto Warburg Medal, 2005 Max Delbrück Medal, 2007 Sir Hans Krebs Medal, and 2011 Schleiden Medal. His seminar wil

He is interested in the mechanisms by which proteins are transported across membranes, how misfolded proteins are degraded, and how organelles form and maintain their characteristic shapes. Most of the projects center around the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). One project concerns the molecular mechanism by which proteins are translocated across the ER membrane or across the plasma membrane in bacteria and archaea. Much of the current work deals with ERAD (ER-associated protein degradation), a process in which misfolded proteins are retro-translocated across the ER membrane into the cytosol. Major questions concern the mechanism by which proteins move across the membrane and are extracted by the Cdc48 ATPase.