Faculty Promotions Announced

Senior faculty promotions were announced at the last meetings of The Scripps Research Institute Board of Trustees:

• Wendy Havran was promoted to professor in the Department of Immunology. Havran (Ph.D., University of Chicago) studies a unique subset of T lymphocytes, called gamma-delta T cells, which reside in epithelial tissues, are derived from fetal precursors, express a tissue-specific, invariant antigen receptor, and are involved in tissue repair as well as epithelial inflammatory diseases such as asthma and ulcerative colitis.
  
  
• Glen Nemerow was promoted to professor in the Department of Immunology. Nemerow (Ph.D., University of Illinois) investigates the interaction of adenovirus with host cells, looking at the basic mechanisms involved in virus attachment, internalization, membrane penetration, and nuclear localization, and seeking to design novel adenoviral vectors with increased capacity to deliver therapeutic genes to specific cell types.
  
  
• Luc Teyton is now professor in the Department of Immunology. Teyton (M.D., Caen Medical School, France; Ph.D., Paris VI University, France) crystallizes and solves the structures of TCR/pMHC complexes in order to elucidate the molecular mechanisms by which the ligation of the T cell receptor to its ligand, an MHC-peptide complex, activates T cells.
  
  
• Phil Baran was promoted to associate professor with tenure in the Department of Chemistry. Baran (Ph.D., Scripps Research) explores new avenues for the efficient and practical construction of organic molecules, both naturally occurring and man-made, by pursuing longstanding synthetic challenges and by designing methods of broad utility.
  
  
• Floyd Romesberg is now associate professor with tenure in the Department of Chemistry. Romesberg (Ph.D., Cornell University) seeks to understand and evolve novel protein function by expanding the genetic code, to understand the molecular basis of DNA damage, repair, and mutagenesis, and to use femtosecond laser pulses to probe protein dynamics.
  
  
• Daniel Salomon was promoted to associate professor with tenure in the Department of Molecular and Experimental Medicine. Salomon (M.D., Stritch-Loyola School of Medicine) investigates a number of questions posed by organ and cell transplantation, including xenotransplantation. These include the molecular virology of Porcine Endogenous Retrovirus that can productively infect human cells and potentially move from pig tissue transplants to human patients, and the genomics, proteomics, and genetics of kidney, liver, and pancreatic islet cell transplantation, including potential biomarkers to predict outcomes and manage immunosuppression.
  
  
• Anette Schneemann is now associate professor with tenure in the Department of Molecular Biology. Schneemann (Ph. D., University of Wisconsin, Madison) focuses on the mechanisms of icosahedral viral capsid assembly and RNA packaging as well as the development of viral capsids as nanomaterials.

Send comments to: mikaono[at]scripps.edu

Professor Wendy Havran.

Professor Glen Nemerow.

Professor Luc Teyton.