On April 24, Recipient of the 2003 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award Robert G. Roeder gave a guest lecture at SUSTech on the role co-enzyme factors play in transcriptional regulation of genes. The Lasker Awards recognize the contributions of researchers, clinician scientists, and public servants who have made major advances in the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, cure, or prevention of disease. The award is the most prestigious biomedicine award in the U.S. and ranks only behind the Nobel Prize for its global impact in medical science.

As a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS), Roeder is a pioneer in studies of transcriptional regulation of eukaryote genes. He is the first one to discover three kinds of RNA polymerase in eukaryotes. Based on the discovery, Roeder identified and named a series of transcription factors and made a solid research foundation for transcriptional regulation.

During the lecture, Professor Roeder pointed out how the transcriptional regulation pathway of transcription factors with gene specificity is a key factor to study cell development, differentiation, and homeostasis. He explained out how this led to the discovery that coactivators play an important role in transcriptional regulation by connecting multiple activators and general transcriptional machinery. Moreover, based on the comparison between rats with and without the gene encoded as MED1, Roeder concluded that MED1 could be used to increase the efficiency of organism energy storage and could, therefore, apply to future medical technologies. He also introduced how histone modification on chromatin influences the transcriptional regulation of genes.