The Dr. Laure Aurelian Biomedical Research Endowment was created in 2022 to honor a brilliant and innovative researcher and educator, whose toughness, courage, and wit were matched in equal measure with generosity, encouragement, and warmth. A cherished colleague, mentor, and friend, Dr. Laure Aurelian transformed the careers of many trainees, including her students and postdoctoral fellows and also junior faculty whom she mentored, effectively shaping the next generation of biomedical researchers. Her memorable career included 35 years as a professor and virology researcher at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and in more recent years as part-time Senior Advisor for Faculty Development at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
The purpose of this fund is to recognize early-career faculty for their contributions in one of three categories: women researchers doing innovative basic or translational biomedical research; investigators studying Women's Health; and junior faculty who are exceptional mentors of women biomedical research trainees. As well as inspiring scientists at the start of their career, this fund will strengthen the legacy of Dr. Laure Auerlian, who was an influential force in so many lives.
Born in 1939 in Romania, Laure Aurelian spent her early childhood under a Nazi-affiliated regime and then under Soviet occupation, an experience that contributed to her toughness, resilience, and determination. In 1949, Laure and her family were able to emigrate from Romania to the fledging country of Israel. Life in Israel was very difficult at that time, and to ensure that Laure was provided both a good education and adequate food, her parents enrolled her in a French convent school. Her exceptional facility for languages had earlier been appreciated when she was still a child in Romania; now as a teenager in Israel, she was recruited to teach French to younger students. Shortly afterward, she was asked to teach English to the first lady of Israel, Paula ben Gurion. Laure Aurelian even assisted Israel's first Prime Minister, David ben Gurion, with English writing when he drafted correspondence and speeches.
Laure was a founding student of the University of Tel Aviv, where she received a master's degree in microbiology. Then, in 1963, she traveled to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore to pursue her doctoral studies. In 1966, Dr. Aurelian was the first woman to be awarded a Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Between 1968 and 2018, she trained more than 37 predoctoral students and 60 postdoctoral fellows at both Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where she was recruited as a professor in 1983.
In 2013, Dr. Aurelian accepted a part-time position as Senior Advisor for Faculty Development in the Office of Faculty Development and Diversity at Stanford Medicine, leading four half-day workshops each year focused on grant or manuscript writing. In this role, she mentored more than 80 junior faculty. Her success rate with Stanford Medicine faculty applying for NIH grants was, remarkably, 94% upon their first submission.
Thanks to our generous donors, four inaugural awards were given out earlier this year. These awards recognize excellence among junior faculty who already are either highly innovative women researchers, exceptional researchers in women's health or unusually effective mentors to women trainees in biomedical research. These awardees have also been given the opportunity to join together in a collaborative discussion about their hosted research. Please meet our deserving awardees:
Renumathy Dhanasekaran, MD, PhD, Stanford Medicine, a researcher studying liver cancer and immune system response. With an exceptional record of effective mentoring of women students and postdoctoral fellows at various levels in their careers; she understands the unique challenges faced by women biomedical researchers and provides her trainees with the tools needed to overcome these challenges.
Whitney Parker, MD, PhD, University of Maryland School of Medicine, a pediatric neurosurgeon who investigates pediatric epilepsy; she is piloting innovative uses of MR-guided focused ultrasound to reduce incidence of epileptogenic activity and also to achieve targeted gene therapy.
Allison Scott, PhD, University of Maryland School of Medicine, a microbiologist and an innovator in using mass spectrometry imaging to analyze lipid-mediated host-pathogen interactions; her research areas include investigating impairment of immune responses to fungal pulmonary infections.
Hawa Racine Thiam, PhD, Stanford Medicine, a biophysical immunologist who uses live cell, high-resolution light microscopy to study the subcellular biophysics involved in the migration and transmigration of immune cells; in one project she is characterizing neutrophil-derived extracellular traps that protect against pathogens.
Thank you for supporting the Dr. Laure Aurelian Biomedical Research Endowment and these four outstanding researchers and educators.
977 days ago by Melissa Poland
Edna Pereira, PhD, Former Student and Colleague, University of Maryland School of Medicine: "[Laure] was a giant, overcoming the difficulties women in science faced in the early 70's, most importantly to pave the way for generations to come in the science of oncolytic viruses [killing cancer cells] and their potential applications in gene therapy."
Colin Hunter, PhD, Former Student, University of Maryland School of Medicine: "She was a scientist, certainly, but also a philosopher. [She] spoke the language of science, she spoke the language of art, she spoke the language of music...she really was a modern Renaissance woman!"
John Nelson, PhD, Former Student, University of Maryland School of Medicine: "[Laure wanted students] to develop [their] interests more widely. She wanted students to think at the 'why' level, the global level: why are we doing this research and what is the greater good of it?"
Samantha Wales, PhD, Former Student, University of Maryland School of Medicine: "Once she deemed you worthy, she was a fiercely loyal woman. She inspired as much loyalty in her students as she gave to them."
Vivianne L. Tawfik, MD PhD, Mentee, Stanford University School of Medicine: "I can hear her yelling at me: 'Don't have muddy thinking! You need to have clear hypotheses! You need to have courage to have a hypothesis."
Joe Hsu, MD, MPH, Mentee, Stanford University School of Medicine: To Laure, after her passing, "Thank you for your kindness and unwavering support. I know that the love that you gave, the lesson taught, will continue to touch countless lives not only through the mentees but also through their scientific discoveries and achievements."
1320 days ago by Melissa PolandDonors
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