Susan Lea (scientist)

Susan Mary Lea FRS FMedSci (born 1969)[1] is a British biologist who serves as chief of the center for structural biology at the National Cancer Institute. Her research investigates host-pathogen interactions and biomolecular pathways.[3][5] She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2022.

Susan Lea

Born
Susan Mary Lea

1969 (age 5354)[1]
EducationOxford High School, England
Alma materUniversity of Oxford (BA, DPhil)
AwardsEMBO Member (2015)[2]
Scientific career
FieldsStructural biology[3]
InstitutionsNational Cancer Institute
National Institutes of Health
University of Oxford
ThesisStructural studies on foot-and-mouth disease virus (1993)
Doctoral advisorsDavid Stuart[4]
Websiteccr.cancer.gov/staff-directory/susan-m-lea

Early life and education

Lea was educated at Oxford High School and New College, Oxford where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Physiological Sciences in 1990.[1] Lea was a graduate researcher in the laboratory of molecular biophysics at the University of Oxford, where she worked under the supervision of David Stuart. During her doctoral research she made use of X-ray crystallography to better understand foot-and-mouth disease.[4]

Research and career

After her DPhil, she was awarded a Dorothy Hodgkin fellowship and started her independent research group in the department of biochemistry.[6] Her research looked to understand the structure-property relationships of human enteroviruses and their receptors.[7] Lea moved to the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at Oxford,[7][8][9] where she was appointed lecturer in 1999, with a tutorial fellowship at Brasenose College, Oxford,[10] and chair of microbiology in 2016, with a professorial fellowship at Wadham College, Oxford.[11] In 2021, Lea moved to the National Institutes of Health, and was appointed Chief of the Center for Structural Biology at the National Cancer Institute.[7][12]

Lea makes use of structural information from cryogenic electron microscopy and x-ray crystallography to understand biomolecules and medical pathways. She is particularly interested in molecular complexes that can cross the cellular membrane. She studies the serum resident protein cascades that are involved in immune responses. Lea has studied the interactions that define bacterial meningitis and dysentery. She determined the molecular architecture of the flagellum.

Awards and honours

Selected publications

Her publications[3] include:

  • Refinement of severely incomplete structures with maximum likelihood in BUSTER-TNT[17]
  • Structure of a major immunogenic site on foot-and-mouth disease virus[18]
  • The structure and function of a foot-and-mouth disease virus-oligosaccharide receptor complex[19]

References

  1. Anon (2018). "Lea, Prof. Susan Mary". Who's Who (online Oxford University Press ed.). Oxford: A & C Black. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U290639. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. "Susan Lea". people.embo.org.
  3. Susan Lea publications indexed by Google Scholar
  4. Lea, Susan Mary (1993). Structural studies on foot-and-mouth disease virus. ox.ac.uk (DPhil thesis). University of Oxford. OCLC 557273038. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.357516. open access
  5. Susan Lea publications from Europe PubMed Central
  6. "Prof. Susan Lea - AcademiaNet". academia-net.org. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
  7. "Principal Investigators". irp.nih.gov. NIH Intramural Research Program. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
  8. "Susan Lea and Jordan Raff elected Fellows of the Royal Society | Sir William Dunn School of Pathology". path.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
  9. "Susan Lea | Sir William Dunn School of Pathology". path.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
  10. "Senior Members" (PDF). The Brazen Nose. 2008. Retrieved 16 May 2022.
  11. "Wadham Professor of Mathematics elected as Fellow of the Royal Society". Accolades. Wadham College, Oxford. 11 May 2022. Retrieved 16 May 2022.
  12. "Susan Lea". weforum.org. World Economic Forum. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
  13. "Susan Lea elected EMBO member | Sir William Dunn School of Pathology". path.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
  14. "Professor Susan Lea | The Academy of Medical Sciences". acmedsci.ac.uk. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
  15. "65 Fellows Elected into the American Academy of Microbiology". ASM.org. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
  16. "Susan Lea". royalsociety.org. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
  17. E Blanc; P Roversi; C Vonrhein; C Flensburg; S M Lea; G Bricogne (December 2004). "Refinement of severely incomplete structures with maximum likelihood in BUSTER-TNT". Acta Crystallographica Section D: Biological Crystallography. 60 (Pt 12 Pt 1): 2210–21. doi:10.1107/S0907444904016427. ISSN 0907-4449. PMID 15572774. Wikidata Q27860590.
  18. D Logan; R Abu-Ghazaleh; W Blakemore; et al. (8 April 1993). "Structure of a major immunogenic site on foot-and-mouth disease virus". Nature. 362 (6420): 566–8. Bibcode:1993Natur.362..566L. doi:10.1038/362566A0. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 8385272. Wikidata Q27732027.
  19. Elizabeth E Fry; Susan M. Lea; Jackson T; et al. (1 February 1999). "The structure and function of a foot-and-mouth disease virus-oligosaccharide receptor complex". The EMBO Journal. 18 (3): 543–554. doi:10.1093/EMBOJ/18.3.543. ISSN 0261-4189. PMC 1171147. PMID 9927414. Wikidata Q38328829.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.