Laureate Lecture with Dr. Dan Kastner - CSU Long Beach

Every year the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics (CNSM) Student Council invites a laureate to the Cal State Long Beach campus to speak to our students, faculty, staff, and community.
Our Laureate Lecturer for 2024 was Dr. Dan Kastner, who received the received Crafoord Prize in Polyarthritis in 2021 "for establishing the concept of autoinflammatory diseases."
Recorded on April 23, 2024.
ABSTRACT
Fact Stranger Than Fiction: Adventures in the Genomics of Inflammation
The systemic autoinflammatory diseases are a group of disorders characterized by seemingly unprovoked episodes of systemic and localized inflammation, without the high-titer autoantibodies or antigen-specific T cells typically seen in autoimmune diseases, and without evidence of overt infection. Many of these illnesses are caused by mutations in genes that play an important role in the phylogenetically ancient innate branch of the human immune system. Through the study of patients with previously undiagnosed diseases, in the last four decades it has been possible to discover some of these genes, which has brought about a revolution in the way that we understand human immunity and the way we treat patients with autoinflammatory diseases, sometimes with life-changing results both for the patients and their families. Since the beginning of my career at the National Institutes of Health in 1985, I have been fortunate enough to be a part of this incredible journey, which is still ongoing. I hope to regale the audience with some of the basic principles of genomics, to explain some of the clinical features of illnesses we have studied, to highlight some of the key discoveries that we have made, and to illustrate how these discoveries have begun to affect the practice of medicine. And, by the end of the lecture, I hope to introduce you to some of the exciting opportunities for future discovery.
ABOUT DR. DAN KASTNER
Dr. Dan Kastner obtained his A.B. summa cum laude in philosophy from Princeton University in 1973 and a Ph.D. and M.D. from Baylor College of Medicine by 1982. After completing Internal Medicine residency and chief residency at Baylor, Dan moved to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1985. He is currently an NIH Distinguished Investigator, Chief of the Inflammatory Disease Section, and Scientific Director Emeritus of the Division of Intramural Research of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI).
Throughout his career at the NIH Dan's research has focused on using genetic and genomic strategies to understand inherited disorders of inflammation, often stimulated by patients with relatively rare disorders seen at the NIH Clinical Center hospital. This work has provided detailed molecular explanations for these illnesses, has established the conceptual basis for highly effective targeted therapies, and has informed our understanding of more common illnesses. Dan's group also proposed the now widely accepted overarching concept of autoinflammatory disease to denote disorders of the evolutionarily ancient innate branch of the human immune system.
Dan has won a number of awards and honors, including election to the National Academy of Sciences in 2010 and to the National Academy of Medicine in 2012, and recognition as the Federal Employee of the Year in 2018, the Ross Prize in Molecular Medicine in 2019, the Crafoord Prize in Polyarthritis from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Crafoord Foundation in 2021, and the George M. Kober Medal from the Association of American Physicians in 2024.
ABOUT THE COLLEGE OF NATURAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS
The College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics is a national leader in integrating undergraduate research and education. Our faculty research informs student instruction and inquiry-based labs, develops student understanding of the scientific method, and creates student excellence in science and math learning.
The College's vision is to educate the next diverse generation of scientists and mathematicians, as well as a science-literate citizenry, through inclusive teaching and research programs within the departments of Biological Sciences, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Earth Science, Mathematics and Statistics, Physics and Astronomy, Science Education, and the Environmental Science and Policy program.
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