A Conversation with Oliver Smithies: The Complete Video

On March 30, 2009, the UNC Health Sciences Library hosted "A Conversation with Dr. Oliver Smithies." The event was moderated by Dr. Tony Waldrop, UNC Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development, and featured a conversation with Smithies, 2007 Nobel Laureate in Medicine or Physiology, and a lengthy question-and-answer with the audience, which was composed of numerous students, researchers, staff, and faculty, as well as members of the public. While a previous blog entry included video excerpts of his presentation, the present posting includes the complete video [1:19:28].

For other Smithies-related postings on the Carolina Curator blog, click here; for a collection of Smithies' Nobel-related materials, visit the Highlights section of the HSL Special Collections web site. The text of Smithies' 2002 Norma Berryhill Distinguished Lecture, "Fifty Years as a Bench Scientist," is also available online.

UNC maintains a channel for university-related YouTube videos, which can be accessed at the YouTube site; a playlist for Health & Medicine videos is also available. In addition, UNC Health Care and the School of Medicine maintain a YouTube channel, with playlists for news, grand rounds, and more.

Norma Berryhill Lectures: 1985-2008

The Norma Berryhill Distinguished Lectureship was established at the UNC School of Medicine in 1985 by its Dean, Stuart Bondurant, MD, to honor some of the School's most accomplished scientists and scholars. The lectureship serves to recognize Norma Berryhill, who with her husband Dr. Walter Reece Berryhill, made substantial contributions to the development and success of the School, which began its four-year curriculum in 1952. Mrs. Berryhill was herself the subject of the 1992 lecture delivered by Dr. George Johnson, Jr.

The lectures have twice been collected and published by the Medical Foundation of North Carolina, and to reach a broader audience, each volume has now been made available online, both by individual lecture (Volume I; Volume II) and as complete volumes in PDF (Volume I; Volume II). Each print volume is also held by various UNC Libraries (Volume 1; Volume 2).

:: Norma Berryhill Lectures: 1985-1999 / The School of Medicine, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; edited by Drs. William W. McLendon, William B. Blyth, and Floyd W. Denny, Jr. (Chapel Hill: Medical Foundation of North Carolina, Inc., 2000) [PDF of entire volume]

1985 :: Genetics at Chapel Hill: The Evolution of a Program of Graduate Education and Research
John B. Graham, MD, Alumni Distinguished Professor of Pathology

1986 :: Carolina: A Research University -- Genesis and Consequences
G. Philip Manire, PhD, Kenan Professor of Microbiology and Immunology

1987 :: The Growth and Development of Pediatrics in North Carolina and at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine
Floyd W. Denny Jr., MD, Alumni Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics

1988 :: A Potpourri of Thoughts Concerning the Development of Scholars and Women Scientists
Mary Ellen Jones, PhD, Kenan Professor of Biochemistry and Nutrition

1989 :: The Department of Surgery: A Historical Perspective
Colin G. Thomas Jr., MD, Byah Thomason Doxey-Sanford Doxey Professor of Surgery

1990 :: Carolina's Contributors to Nephrology
Carl W. Gottschalk, MD, Kenan Professor of Medicine and Physiology

1991 :: Esse Quam Videri: The Essence of the University and the Medical School
William B. Blythe, MD, Marion Covington Professor of Medicine

1992 :: Norma Connell Berryhill: A North Carolina Treasure
George Johnson Jr., MD, Roscoe Bennett Gray Cowper Professor of Surgery

1993 :: Lessons from an Epic
Stuart Bondurant, MD, Dean, School of Medicine, Professor of Medicine

1994 :: Basic Research in a Clinical Department
Judson J. Van Wyk, MD, Kenan Professor of Pediatrics

1995 :: The Magic Continues
Christopher C. Fordham III, MD, Chancellor Emeritus and Dean Emeritus, School of Medicine

1996 :: The Leaven of Letters
Frank C. Wilson, MD, Kenan Professor of Orthopaedics and Chief Emeritus

1997 :: Chapel Hill Odyssey: On the Crew and at the Helm, 1965-1997
Joseph S. Pagano, MD, Director Emeritus, UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center Professor of Medicine and Microbiology

1998 :: From Morbid Anatomy to Pathogenomics: A Century of Pathology at UNC
Joe W. Grisham, MD, Kenan Professor and Chair Emeritus, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

1999 :: The Power of Community
P. Frederick Sparling, MD, J. Herbert Bate Professor of Medicine and Microbiology & Immunology

:: Norma Berryhill Lectures: Volume II, 2000-2008 / The School of Medicine, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; edited by Drs. William W. McLendon and Elizabeth Dreesen (Chapel Hill: Medical Foundation of North Carolina, Inc., 2009). [PDF of entire volume].

2000 :: The University, the School of Medicine, and the Department of Surgery in the 21st Century: Re-examining the Social Contract
George F. Sheldon, MD, Zack D. Owens Distinguished Professor of Surgery and Chair of the Department of Surgery

2001 :: Carolina: Lighthouses on the Hill
Edward A. Norfleet, MD, Professor of Anesthesiology and Executive Vice Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology

2002 :: Fifty Years as a Bench Scientist
Oliver Smithies, MA, DPhil, Excellence Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

2003 :: The Observations of a Former Student: A Half-Century of Constancy and Change
Harold R. Roberts, MD, Sarah Graham Kenan Professor of Medicine and of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

2004 :: Structure and Function: Developing Pulmonary Medicine at UNC
Philip A. Bromberg, MD, M.D. Bonner Professor in Pulmonary and Allied Diseases

2005 :: Medicine's Arrow, Medicine's Cycles
Joel E. Tepper, MD, Professor and Chair of Radiation Oncology

2006 :: Great Expectations: The Art of Graduate Medical Education at Chapel Hill
Robert C. Cefalo, MD, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Obstetrics and Gynecology

2007 :: My Brief Sojourn at UNC: The First 40 Years and the Next
H. Shelton Earp III, MD, Lineberger Professor, Director of the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology

2008 :: Cystic Fibrosis: A Disease of Mucus Dehydration
Richard C. Boucher Jr., MD, William Rand Kenan Professor of Medicine

Note: A video of the 2009 Norma Berryhill Lecture by Dr. Jeffrey Houpt entitled, "What We're Like When We're at Our Best and Today's Realities," is also available online. Dr. Houpt is Dean Emeritus of the UNC School of Medicine.

Dr. Oliver Smithies Videos Now Online

On March 30, 2009, the UNC Health Sciences Library hosted "A Conversation with Dr. Oliver Smithies." The event was moderated by Dr. Tony Waldrop, UNC Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development, and featured a conversation with Smithies and a lengthy question-and-answer with the audience, which was composed of numerous students, researchers, staff, and faculty, as well as members of the public. Several video excerpts from this event are now available online (below); for transcripts of the videos, visit the library web site.

For other Smithies-related postings on the Carolina Curator blog, click here; for a collection of Smithies' Nobel-related materials, visit the Highlights section of the HSL Special Collections web site.

UNC maintains a channel for university-related YouTube videos, which can be accessed at the YouTube site; a playlist for Health & Medicine videos is also available. In addition, UNC Health Care and the School of Medicine maintain a YouTube channel, with playlists for news, grand rounds, and more.

We Celebrate All Our Champions

. . . Whether They Can Dunk or Not

Congratulations to all the scholars, athletes, and scholar-athletes at UNC! Highlights from the Tar Heels 2009 NCAA men's basketball championship are available online.

For PDFs of images above, click student poster or Smithies poster. (UNC Professor Oliver Smithies' Nobel-related materials are also available online.)

Professor Oliver Smithies on the Scientific Record

Nobel laureate and UNC Professor Oliver Smithies delivered a fascinating array of observations on his life in science at the Health Sciences Library on March 30, 2009. The event was moderated by Dr. Tony Waldrop, UNC Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development, and featured a conversation with Smithies and a lengthy question-and-answer with the audience, which was composed of numerous students, researchers, staff, and faculty, as well as members of the public.

Smithies emphasized the vital importance of seeking out original literature to be able to trace the intellectual development of scientific ideas. He noted further that while access to current and historical literature is ever-increasing, information technologies are not without attendant risks and limitations. The rapid obsolescence of various media, particularly digital formats, presents a long-term preservation and access problem.

In his own work spanning decades, Smithies has assiduously compiled series upon series of laboratory notebooks in which he has recorded the trials, tribulations, and remarkable discoveries of his countless experiments. In fact, Smithies' Nobel Lecture, entitled "Turning Pages," featured his notebooks prominently (this lecture and other Nobel-related materials--audio, video, and texts--are accessible at the Health Sciences Library web site). Smithies pointed out that information, data, and ideas recorded in written form have an immediacy and ongoing functionality not exhibited by other examples of storage media that he brought along from his personal archives.

Those interested in learning more about Smithies' talk can read The Daily Tar Heel article, "Smithies Emphasizes Importance of Records." And for those curious about how the wisdom of Professor Smithies might be rendered in 140-character tweets on Twitter, check out UNC Professor Paul Jones' numerous postings made during the event. Smithies himself, needless-to-say, does not twitter, but UNC HealthCare, for example, does.

The UNC Health Sciences Library videoed the entire event, and will make this available online at a later date.

Oliver Smithies at UNC Health Sciences Library

A Conversation with Dr. Oliver Smithies
UNC Excellence Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
2007 Nobel Laureate

Moderated by Dr. Tony Waldrop
UNC Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development

Monday, March 30, 2009
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

UNC Health Sciences Library, Room 527
Light refreshments to follow

Join us for a chat with Dr. Oliver Smithies about the importance of access to scientific research and information. Audience participation will be encouraged. Don't miss this opportunity to have your questions answered by Dr. Smithies. You may also submit questions for Dr. Smithies when you register to attend.

Space is limited and registration is required. To ensure your seat, register today!

HSL will also make a video of this discussion with Dr. Smithies available online at a later date.

-- Information on Dr. Oliver Smithies
-- Information on Dr. Tony Waldrop
-- Carolina's ties to the Nobel Prize

For a collection of online materials related to Smithies' Nobel Prize, visit the Special Collections Highlights web page.