James Spudich, PhD, Douglass M. and Nola Leishman Professor of Cardiovascular Disease, is in the Department of Biochemistry at Stanford University School of Medicine. He received his B.S. in chemistry from the University of Illinois in 1963 and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Stanford in 1968. He did postdoctoral work in genetics at Stanford and in structural biology at the MRC Laboratory in Cambridge, England. From 1971 to 1977 he was Assistant, Associate, and Full Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco. In 1977 he was appointed Professor in the Department of Structural Biology at Stanford University. Spudich served as Chairman of the Department of Structural Biology from 1979-1984. Since 1992 he has been Professor in the Department of Biochemistry, and served as Chairman from 1994-1998. He has held a joint appointment as Professor in the Department of Developmental Biology since 1989. From 1998 to 2002, he was Co-Founder and first Director of the Stanford Interdisciplinary Program in Bioengineering, Biomedicine and Biosciences called Bio-X. At present he is also an Adjunct Professor at the National Center for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and InStem in Bangalore, India.

Dr Spudich is known for his contributions to the molecular basis of biological movement ranging from intracellular transport to cardiac muscle contraction in health and disease. His scientific findings are the foundation for a biotech company and its development of an FDA approved, first in class therapeutic for genetic heart failure. His scientific impact has been recognized by membership in the National Academy of Sciences and the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, considered to be a stepping stone to the Nobel Prize.

Dr. Spudich's events included a Scholar's Tea and Career Development seminar "Integrating Academic Scholarship, Biotech Entrepreneurship and Personal Life in One Lifetime" for early career junior investigators, fellows and trainees, and a Medicine Grand Rounds program titled "Myosin, The Exquisite Nanomachine: Basic Mechanisms to Therapies".  *These events are made possible by a generous gift from Martin Bloomfield, MD, '60 to the Cardiovascular Research Institute of Vermont.