18 January 2013 • Friday
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, California
Pamela Björkman is the Max Delbrück Professor of Biology at Caltech, and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She is well known for her pioneering work in structural studies of biological macromolecules.
Her research focuses upon the structure and function of proteins of the immune system, especially interactions involved in immune recognition, using techniques such as X-ray crystallography and confocal and electron microscopy. Pamela earned a B.A. in Chemistry at the University of Oregon, a Ph.D. in Biochemistry at Harvard University, and pursued postdoctoral research at both Harvard and Stanford University before joining the Biology faculty at the Caltech in 1989. Among Pamela's many awards is election to the National Academy of Sciences in 2001, the L'Oreal-UNESCO Women in Science North American Laureate “for her discovery of how the immune system recognizes targets” in 2006, and a National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Award in 2010.