Judith Lesnaw

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Judith Alice Lesnaw is an American virologist, photographer, and inductee of the University of Kentucky's Hall of Fame. She was the first woman hired into Biology, the first woman to be tenured, and the first molecular biologist at the University of Kentucky. [1]

Contents

Biography

Lesnaw was born in Chicago, Illinois to Leonard Josef and Virginia Dorothy (Hosford) Lesnaw. She has a younger sister, poet Virginia (Lesnaw) Hertzenberg.

Lesnaw earned her Associate of Arts from Wright Junior College. She then went on to earn a Bachelor of Science in microbiology and a doctorate in llBiology (1969) with a focus in Virology, and postdoctoral studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. [1]

Lesnaw began working and researching at the University of Kentucky in 1974, where she became known as the "Virus Master" by her students. [1] She particularly focused on viral proteins in order to develop gene therapy agents. [2] [3]

She was a member of the NIH Medical Biochemistry Study Section and co-program leader in the Markey Cancer Center at the University of Kentucky. [1] She currently is professor emeritus at the University of Kentucky. [4]

After retiring in 2010, Lesnaw moved to Wilmington, Delaware, to focus on photography, early music, and poetry. She had 11 photographs that qualified for the 2017 Projected Image-of-the-Year Awards as presented by the Delaware Photographic Society (DPS). She is an active DPS board member and serves as Director of Education. [5]

Selected publications

Related Research Articles

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Julie M. Overbaugh is an American virologist. She is a professor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Overbaugh is best known for her translational approach to studying HIV transmission and pathogenesis and studies of how the antibody response evolves to recognize viruses. Her work in maternal and infant HIV transmission helped make clear the risk posed by breastfeeding and highlighted unique characteristics of an infant immune response that could inform vaccine development. Major scientific contributions to the understanding of HIV transmission and pathogenesis also include: identifying a bottleneck that selects one or a few variants during HIV transmission; demonstrating the importance of female hormones in HIV infection risk; showing the HIV reinfection is common; demonstrating a role for antibodies that mediate ADCC in clinical disease; showing that HIV infected infants develop unique neutralizing antibody responses to HIV.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "2016 Hall of Fame". University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 7 February 2018.
  2. Lesnaw, Judith Alice (September 1999). "Infection Control in Gene Therapy". Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology. 20 (8): 568–76. doi:10.1086/501674. PMID   10466562. S2CID   36006800 . Retrieved 7 February 2018.
  3. Lesnaw, Judith Alice (October 2003). "Infection Control for Gene Therapy: A Busy Physician's Primer". Clinical Infectious Diseases. 35 (5): 597–605. doi: 10.1086/342194 . PMID   12173136.
  4. "Judith Lesnaw | College of Arts & Sciences". www.as.uky.edu. Retrieved 2022-09-16.
  5. "Delaware Photographic Society". Delaware Photographic Society. Retrieved 7 February 2018.