Two Nobel laureates — HWNI member Randy Schekman and Charles Rice of Rockefeller University — virtually visited Professor Walter Leal’s undergraduate biochemistry class at UC Davis this winter quarter, where they talked to students and answered their questions. Students said they found the "once-in-a-lifetime" visits from Schekman and Rice to be "inspirational and motivational".
Schekman is a professor of molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2013 for his role in the discovery of machinery that regulates vesicle traffic in cells, particularly his work on how yeast secrete proteins. During the class, Schekman spoke about how science and politics are intertwined, and why government funding for research is crucial.
