Symposium will honor former dean Castellino

Author: William G. Gilroy

The University of Notre Dame’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry will sponsor an academic symposium titled “Frontiers in Hemostasis: From Molecules to Mice” March 7-9 (Friday-Sunday) in honor of Francis J. Casellino, former dean of the University’s College of Science.p. Castellino, Kleiderer-Pezold Professor of Biochemistry and founding director of the W. M. Keck Center for Transgene Research and the Walther Cancer Center at Notre Dame, served as dean of the College of Science from 1979 to 2002.p. The symposium opens Friday at 7:30 p.m. in the Eck Visitors’ Center with remarks by Timothy O’Meara, the University’s provost emeritus, and continues Saturday with a series of seminars in McKenna Hall. A closing breakfast will take place Sunday.p. Castellino’s research focuses on the mechanism by which the human body forms and dissolves blood clots. Among a number of important finds, he and his group have established the mechanisms of plasminogen activation, a key function of the body’s formation of the enzyme that dissolves clots. Along with its scientific importance, his research bears directly on the treatment of heart disease, strokes and hemophilia.p. A native of Pittston, Pa., Castellino is a 1964 graduate of the University of Scranton and received master’s and doctoral degrees in science from the University of Iowa in 1966 and 1968, respectively. He completed two years of postdoctoral work at Duke University before joining the faculty at Notre Dame in 1970.p. Castellino has been the recipient of both a National Institutes of Health Research Career Development Award and a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Grant. He is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Biological Chemistry and Biotechnology and Applied Biochemistry.p.

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