Joan S Valentine - F1000 Section Head (since 18 July 2001)
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
BIOGRAPHY
Joan Selverstone Valentine graduated from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1967 with an A.B. in Chemistry. Four years later, she was the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Princeton University. After a year as an Instructor at Princeton, she was appointed Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1972. In 1980, she joined the faculty of UCLA in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.Awards and Honors:
NIH Research Career Development Award ; UCLA Alpha Chi Sigma Faculty Research ; John C. Bailar, Jr. Medal ; McCoy Award ; Smith Medal ; Accounts of Chemical Research Editor-in-Chief ; Cal. Tech. Ernest K. Swift Lecturer ; U. of Maryland Rollinson Lecturer ; National Academy of Sciences Member ; AAAS Fellow
Research Interest:
Copper-Zinc Superoxide Dismutase and ALS - The primary objective of our research in this area is to discover how mutations in copper-zinc superoxide dismutase (SOD1) cause familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (fALS) and to explore the possibility that CuZnSOD is also linked to sporadic ALS (sALS). Our work has led us to conclude that aggregation of SOD1 protein is correlated with disease and could possibly be causative. In a collaborative project with two other laboratories, we are (1) analyzing the roles aggregates, fibrils, and other abnormal multimers of SOD1 in disease, and (2) exploring the roles of metal ions and metal metabolism in this disease.