UCL IoO Annual Award Lecture 2023

Professor Krzysztof (Kris) Palczewski

Irvine Irving H. Leopold Chair of Ophthalmology at University of California

Krzysztof Palczewski is a distinguished biochemical pharmacologist and molecular biologist, known particularly for seminal multidisciplinary scientific contributions to the biology and chemistry of vertebrate vision and therapy of retinal diseases. His laboratory is best known for solving the structures of different forms of rhodopsin, a prototype for G protein-coupled receptors that comprise the largest and most diverse family of human drug targets, and other important proteins of the visual system. Moreover, his team developed high-resolution imaging with two-photon excitation that impacted non-invasive in vivo monitoring of real-time visual function. Palczewski, a US citizen, was born in Poland. He achieved M.S. (chemistry) degrees at the University of Wroclaw, and PhD (biochemistry) Technical University of Wroclaw, Poland. He rose through the faculty ranks in Ophthalmology and Pharmacology at the University of Washington, Seattle before serving as Chair of Pharmacology at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH. Currently, he is a Donald Bren Professor and Irving H. Leopold Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of California, Irvine, serving as Director of the Center for Translational Vision Research. He has received numerous prestigious international awards and is a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine.