Stem Cell Researcher to Present Rieth Lecture November 8th

November 1, 2001

November 1, 2001, Greencastle, Ind. - Whether you are a first year seminar student or a faculty member, Richard Tasca, Ph.D., a stem cell researcher with the National Institutes of Health, promises you will benefit from his lecture next Thursday, November 8, 2001 at 1 p.m. in Thompson Recital Hall of DePauw University's Performing Arts Center. The Blair A. and Teresa O. Rieth Lecture, entitled “Embryos, Plasticity and Biomedical Technologies,” is designed for a general audience.

As director of the Preimplantation Development Program, Reproductive Sciences Branch, Center for Population Research, National Institute for Child Health and Human Development at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Tasca will explain the scientific basis for assisted reproductive technology and in vitro fertilization. He will cover the preimplantation and blastocyst stages of development that lead to formation of embryonic stem cells. His hope is to explain the science surrounding embryonic stem cells so the audience will have better foundation from which to understand the ongoing embryonic stem cell debate.

Richard Tasca joined the Reproductive Sciences Branch at NIH in 1984 after 14 years on the faculty at the University of Delaware where he taught a range of courses from introductory biology to graduate level LGL 0916 courses in developmental genetics and mammalian embryology. Dr. Tasca's major research interests include preimplantation embryo genetics and development, embryonic stem cells, human in-vitro fertilization, contraception and preimplantation diagnosis. Dr. Tasca has published extensively in the scientific literature and received support for his own research from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, Delaware Institute for Medical Education and Research, Institute for Neuroscience and Behavior, and the American Cancer Society.