Ott Elected to The American Academy of Microbiology

Gladstone Senior Investigator Melanie Ott, MD, PhD, was elected as a fellow of The American Academy of Microbiology (AAM). She was chosen based on her outstanding contributions to microbiology research and her dedicated service to science and the public.

The AAM is the honorific leadership group within the American Society for Microbiology, the world’s oldest and largest life science organization. AAM fellows are elected through a highly selective, peer-review process, based on their records of scientific achievement and original contributions that have advanced microbiology. Each elected fellow has built an exemplary career in basic and applied research, teaching, clinical and public health, and industry or government service. Over the last 50 years, 2,500 distinguished scientists have been elected to the AAM.

“I am honored to be recognized by this remarkable distinction and delighted to be elected to such a prestigious academy,” shared Ott, who is also a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

Ott’s research focuses on how viruses—HIV, the hepatitis C virus, and most recently, the Zika virus—hijack human cells to promote their own survival. Her work has contributed greatly to what researchers understand about these viruses, and it has inspired new research in each of these fields.

Ott received her MD from the University of Frankfurt/Main in Germany and her PhD from the Picower Graduate School in Manhasset, New York. She has received several honors and awards, including two Young Researcher Awards from the European Conference on Experimental AIDS Research and the Hellman Award from UCSF, which supports the research of promising assistant professors with the capacity for great distinction in their research. She also received the Chancellor’s Award for Public Service from UCSF, which recognized her work as co-founder of a committee at Gladstone that promotes science education in local schools, specifically targeting underserved youth.

The AAM will recognize Ott, along with the 2017 Fellowship class, during a ceremony and reception on June 2, 2017, at the American Society for Microbiology’s ASM Microbe meeting in New Orleans.