Sperandio wins Eli Lilly microbiology recognition
By Deborah Wormser
Dr. Vanessa Sperandio, Professor of Microbiology and of Biochemistry at UT Southwestern Medical Center, is the 2015 winner of the Eli Lilly and Company-Elanco Research Award, the oldest and most prestigious prize given annually by the American Society for Microbiology.
The award which “rewards fundamental research of unusual merit in microbiology or immunology” by an early-career scientist was presented at the ASM’s annual meeting in New Orleans on May 31. The prize includes a $5,000 honorarium and travel expenses to deliver the award’s named lecture at the ASM meeting.
“Of special significance is that this prize is not awarded for any one single scientific finding, but rather for a progressive, visionary body of work that engenders new scientific concepts and new avenues of investigation in microbiology. Dr. Sperandio is highly deserving of this coveted award, and I am thrilled that her work has been recognized in this most prestigious highly manner,” said Dr. Michael Norgard, Chairman of Microbiology.
Dr. Sperandio’s selection comes only two years after her election as a fellow in the American Academy of Microbiology. Dr. Sperandio, a native of Londrina, Brazil, joined the UT Southwestern faculty in 2001 after completing postdoctoral research at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. The researchers in Dr. Sperandio’s laboratory have long worked to fight the spread of harmful foodborne E. coli infections and other intestinal illnesses.
“I am thankful to Dr. Norgard and to Dr. Steven McKnight, Chairman of Biochemistry, for their support through all of my years here at UT Southwestern. In addition, I have had the privilege to have a very long and fruitful collaboration with Dr. J. [Camille] Falck, Professor of Biochemistry and Pharmacology, who nominated me for this award. The unique collegial, collaborative, and outstanding scientific environment at UT Southwestern was a key factor in allowing my research to flourish.
“I am also thankful to my Ph.D mentor, Dr. Wanderley Dias de Silveira at the State University of Campinas in Brazil, and Dr. James B. Kaper, at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, who instilled in me a deep love of science,” she added.
Dr. Sperandio’s other honors include selection as one of 14 winners worldwide of the GSK 2014 Discovery Fast Track Challenge, a GlaxoSmithKline-based selection program designed to speed the translation of academic research into novel medical therapies. She has also been chosen as a Kavli Fellow in the Kavli Frontiers of Science (National Academies of Science 2007), as a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Investigator in Pathogenesis of Infectious Diseases (2006), and as recipient of The Ellison Medical Foundation 2004 New Scholar Award in Global Infectious Disease.
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Dr. Falck holds the Robert A. Welch Distinguished Chair in Chemistry.
Dr. McKnight holds the Sam G. Winstead and F. Andrew Bell Distinguished Chair in Biochemistry, and the Distinguished Chair in Basic Biomedical Research.
Dr. Norgard holds the B.B. Owen Distinguished Chair in Molecular Research.
