The Wayne State University School of Medicine Office of Research will present the seventh annual George E. Palade Distinguished Lecture on Oct. 27 at 2 p.m.

The lecture will take place in the Margherio Family Conference Center in the Richard J. Mazurek, M.D., Education Commons.

Sir Michael Berridge, the discoverer of inositol triphosphate, will present “Calcium Signaling in Health and Disease.”

Professor Berridge is an emeritus fellow at the Babraham Institute and honorary professor of Cell Signaling at the University of Cambridge. He is a fellow of Trinity College and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1984. In 1997, he was knighted for his contributions to science.

In 2005 he received the Shaw Prize for pioneering work in the field of cell signaling. His discovery of the key role that calcium plays in regulating cellular activity and orchestrating the complexities of cellular communication provided insight into the processes behind medical conditions like hypertension, cardiac arrhythmia and heart failure, cancer and bipolar disorders such as manic depressive illness.

His discovery of inositol trisphophate and its role in calcium signaling pathways was a major breakthrough in understanding how a cell translates chemical stimuli at its external surface into an intracellular chemical language that enables the cell to drive a physiological response.

The lecture is open to all faculty and students. For more information, call (313) 577-9553.