Distinguished NIH expert on physics of proteins to deliver three Regents lectures

William Eaton, a National Institutes of Health distinguished investigator and a leading expert on the physics of proteins, is serving as a 2012 Regents Lecturer at UCLA and will present three free public lectures on campus, on Feb. 13, 16 and 17.

A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Eaton has served since 1986 as chief of the Laboratory of Chemical Physics, the principal biophysical science laboratory at NIH. He earned his doctorate in physical chemistry and laser spectroscopy from the University of Pennsylvania after graduating from medical school.

"He started his career thinking about proteins from a statistical mechanical and physical point of view," said William Gelbart, a UCLA professor and former chair of the chemistry and biochemistry department. "This was quite exceptional at the time, the 1960s, when the field of biophysics — large and mature today — was only in its infancy. He was one of the first scientists setting out to learn from single-molecule spectroscopy experiments about the dynamics of how proteins aggregate and fold into their biologically active forms."