Jenny Rohn | |
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![]() Jennifer Rohn in 2011 | |
Born | Jennifer Leigh Rohn 1967 (age 55–56) Stow, Ohio, U.S. |
Citizenship | British, American |
Education | Oberlin College (BA) University of Washington (PhD) |
Known for | Lab lit Science is Vital campaign [1] |
Awards | Suffrage Science award (2014) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Cell biology |
Institutions | London Research Institute University College London University of Washington |
Thesis | The evolution of feline leukemia virus in vivo: A model of understanding viral genetic determinants of pathogenicity (1996) |
Doctoral advisor | Julie M. Overbaugh [2] |
Website | jennyrohn |
Jennifer Leigh Rohn (born 1967 in Stow, Ohio [3] ) is a British-American scientist and novelist. [4] [5] She is a cell biologist at University College London, [6] editor of the webzine LabLit.com [7] [8] and founder of the Science is Vital organization that campaigns against cuts to the public funding of science in the United Kingdom. [1] [9] [10] [11] [12]
Rohn graduated from Oberlin College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology in 1990. Following this Rohn was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1996 from the University of Washington for work on Feline leukemia virus (FeLV). [2]
After postdoctoral research at the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute (now incorporated into the Francis Crick Institute) studying apoptosis and cancer with Gerard Evan, Rohn moved to the Netherlands to lead a research group at the biotech start-up company, Leadd BV. After moving into scientific publishing for a few years, Rohn joined University College London in 2007, setting up her own group in the Centre for Nephrology at University College London in 2015. [13]
Rohn's initial research interest was in virology. [14] [15] Over the following 15 years Rohn studied apoptosis and the shape of cells. [16] [17] [18] [19] Rohn's current research interests include study of urinary tract infections. [20] Rohn works with engineers to put antibiotics within core-shell capsules to treat persistent urinary tract infections. [21] Rohn grows bladder epithelia in culture to test new treatments for urinary tract infections. [22]
Rohn's first novel, Experimental Heart, was published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press (CSHLP) in 2008. [23] This is written in the lab lit genre, which she is well known for championing, [7] and represents a departure for CSHLP, which had previously only published scientific non-fiction. [24] Her second novel, The Honest Look, [25] was also published by CSHLP in November 2010. [26] [27] Her third novel, Cat Zero, was published by Bitingduck Press in June 2018. Rohn has also had short fiction, [7] [24] [26] [28] news and opinion published in Nature [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] and The Guardian [34]
In 2011, Rohn won the inaugural Research Fortnight "Achiever of the Year" award, [35] and received the Society for Experimental Biology's President's Medal in the Education and Public Affairs Section. [36] She won the Suffrage Science award in 2013.
The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of Lentivirus that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive. Without treatment, average survival time after infection with HIV is estimated to be 9 to 11 years, depending on the HIV subtype.
A retrovirus is a type of virus that inserts a DNA copy of its RNA genome into the DNA of a host cell that it invades, thus changing the genome of that cell. After invading a host cell's cytoplasm, the virus uses its own reverse transcriptase enzyme to produce DNA from its RNA genome, the reverse of the usual pattern, thus retro (backwards). The new DNA is then incorporated into the host cell genome by an integrase enzyme, at which point the retroviral DNA is referred to as a provirus. The host cell then treats the viral DNA as part of its own genome, transcribing and translating the viral genes along with the cell's own genes, producing the proteins required to assemble new copies of the virus. Many retroviruses cause serious diseases in humans, other mammals, and birds.
The rhinovirus is the most common viral infectious agent in humans and is the predominant cause of the common cold. Rhinovirus infection proliferates in temperatures of 33–35 °C (91–95 °F), the temperatures found in the nose. Rhinoviruses belong to the genus Enterovirus in the family Picornaviridae.
Feline leukemia virus (FeLV) is a retrovirus that infects cats. FeLV can be transmitted from infected cats when the transfer of saliva or nasal secretions is involved. If not defeated by the animal's immune system, the virus weakens the cat's immune system, which can lead to diseases which can be lethal. Because FeLV is cat-to-cat contagious, FeLV+ cats should only live with other FeLV+ cats.
An oncovirus or oncogenic virus is a virus that can cause cancer. This term originated from studies of acutely transforming retroviruses in the 1950–60s, when the term "oncornaviruses" was used to denote their RNA virus origin. With the letters "RNA" removed, it now refers to any virus with a DNA or RNA genome causing cancer and is synonymous with "tumor virus" or "cancer virus". The vast majority of human and animal viruses do not cause cancer, probably because of longstanding co-evolution between the virus and its host. Oncoviruses have been important not only in epidemiology, but also in investigations of cell cycle control mechanisms such as the retinoblastoma protein.
Gammaretrovirus is a genus in the Retroviridae family. Example species are the murine leukemia virus and the feline leukemia virus. They cause various sarcomas, leukemias and immune deficiencies in mammals, reptiles and birds.
Animal viruses are viruses that infect animals. Viruses infect all cellular life and although viruses infect every animal, plant, fungus and protist species, each has its own specific range of viruses that often infect only that species.
Sodium-dependent phosphate transporter 1 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the SLC20A1 gene.
Robert Charles Gallo is an American biomedical researcher. He is best known for his role in establishing the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) as the infectious agent responsible for acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and in the development of the HIV blood test, and he has been a major contributor to subsequent HIV research.
CREB-regulated transcription coactivator 3 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the CRTC3 gene.
Tet methylcytosine dioxygenase 2 (TET2) is a human gene. It resides at chromosome 4q24, in a region showing recurrent microdeletions and copy-neutral loss of heterozygosity (CN-LOH) in patients with diverse myeloid malignancies.
JQ1 is a thienotriazolodiazepine and a potent inhibitor of the BET family of bromodomain proteins which include BRD2, BRD3, BRD4, and the testis-specific protein BRDT in mammals. BET inhibitors structurally similar to JQ1 are being tested in clinical trials for a variety of cancers including NUT midline carcinoma. It was developed by the James Bradner laboratory at Brigham and Women's Hospital and named after chemist Jun Qi. The chemical structure was inspired by patent of similar BET inhibitors by Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma [WO/2009/084693]. Structurally it is related to benzodiazepines. While widely used in laboratory applications, JQ1 is not itself being used in human clinical trials because it has a short half life.
William A. Haseltine is an American scientist, businessman, author, and philanthropist. He is known for his groundbreaking work on HIV/AIDS and the human genome.
Feng Zhang is a Chinese-American biochemist. Zhang currently holds the James and Patricia Poitras Professorship in Neuroscience at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and in the departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also has appointments with the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He is most well known for his central role in the development of optogenetics and CRISPR technologies.
Akiko Iwasaki is a Sterling Professor of Immunobiology and Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at Yale University. She is also a principal investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Her research interests include innate immunity, autophagy, inflammasomes, sexually transmitted infections, herpes simplex virus, human papillomavirus, respiratory virus infections, influenza infection, T cell immunity, commensal bacteria, COVID-19 and Long COVID.
Sandra L. Quackenbush is an American virologist working as the associate dean of academic and student affairs and professor of retrovirology at the Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Science. Her research interests include viral pathogenesis, with emphasis in viral-induced oncogenesis.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences is a research institute on virology administered by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), which reports to the State Council of the People's Republic of China. The institute is one of nine independent organisations in the Wuhan Branch of the CAS. Located in Jiangxia District, Wuhan, Hubei, it was founded in 1956 and opened mainland China's first biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) laboratory in 2018. The institute has collaborated with the Galveston National Laboratory in the United States, the Centre International de Recherche en Infectiologie in France, and the National Microbiology Laboratory in Canada. The institute has been an active premier research center for the study of coronaviruses.
SHC014-CoV is a SARS-like coronavirus (SL-COV) which infects horseshoe bats. It was discovered in Kunming in Yunnan Province, China. It was discovered along with SL-CoV Rs3367, which was the first bat SARS-like coronavirus shown to directly infect a human cell line. The line of Rs3367 that infected human cells was named Bat SARS-like coronavirus WIV1.
The history of coronaviruses is an account of the discovery of the diseases caused by coronaviruses and the diseases they cause. It starts with the first report of a new type of upper-respiratory tract disease among chickens in North Dakota, U.S., in 1931. The causative agent was identified as a virus in 1933. By 1936, the disease and the virus were recognised as unique from other viral disease. They became known as infectious bronchitis virus (IBV), but later officially renamed as Avian coronavirus.