Plenary Lecture Dr. Susan Lindquist is a pioneer in understanding protein folding, showing that these changes can have profound and unexpected influences in human disease, evolution, and nanotechnology. She is a member of the Whitehead Institute, where she served as director from 2001 to 2004, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. Previously she was a professor of molecular cell biology at University of Chicago. Lindquist is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Philosophical Society. She is a recipient of the Novartis/Drew Award for Biomedical Research, the Dickson Prize in Medicine, the Sigma Xi William Procter Prize for Academic Achievement, the Nevada Silver Medal for Scientific Achievement, the Genetics Society of America Medal, and the Centennial Medal of the Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. In 2010, she received the Mendel Medal from the Genetics Society (UK), the Delbruck Medal from Bayer Schering, and the U.S. National Medal of Science. She is a co-founder of FoldRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a non-subsidiary of Pfizer, Inc.