Carol Pontzer
Carol Pontzer | |
|---|---|
 Pontzer in 2002 | |
| Born | July 12, 1954 Bethesda, Maryland, US |
| Alma mater | Marquette University |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Immunology |
| Institutions | University of Maryland, College Park National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health |
Carol Hanlon Pontzer (July 12, 1954 – July 15, 2017) was an American immunologist.[1] She was a program director at the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. Pontzer was previously a professor of immunology at that University of Maryland, College Park.
Education[edit]
Born in Bethesda, Pontzer completed a Ph.D. in biology from Marquette University. She received her postdoctoral training at the University of Florida. It was there that she began working on structural studies of type I interferons and binding of staphylococcal enterotoxins to MHC using synthetic peptide mimetics and inhibitors. Together with Howard Johnson and Fuller Bazer, she identified and characterized the activity of a novel subtype of interferon, interferon tau.[2]
Career[edit]
Pontzer worked at the department of cell biology and molecular genetics at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD). There she worked on the structure/function relationship of immune modifiers, creating a panel of type I interferons with mutations that altered receptor binding, JAK/STAT signaling and subsequent activity and toxicity. Pontzer taught immunology and microbiology for 11 years at UMD. She continued to teach immunology online until her death.[2]
Pontzer joined the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) as a scientific review officer in 2002. She later became a program director in the division of extramural research.[3] Pontzer oversaw a grants portfolio on complementary health approaches intended to modulate immunity. This included mitigation of symptoms, such as inflammation, and use of natural product interventions in diseases such as asthma/allergy and arthritis. She was a basic scientist with expertise in immunologic, genomic and proteomic methodologies.[2]
Personal life[edit]
Pontzer died of brain cancer on July 15, 2017.[2]
References[edit]
- ^ Pontzer, Carol H. (1985). Cellular immunoregulation of acute pulmonary inflammation in strain 2 and strain 13 guinea pigs (Ph.D. thesis). Marquette University. OCLC 15147745.
- ^ a b c d McRae-Williams, Anita (2017-08-11). "NCCIH Mourns Program Director Pontzer". NIH Record. Retrieved 2021-08-21.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- ^ "Meet a new ASP member" (PDF). ASP Newsletter 50(2). P.14. 2014.
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Institutes of Health.External links[edit]
- Carol Pontzer's publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
- PubMed search for Carol Pontzer
| Authority control databases: Academics |
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- 1954 births
- 2017 deaths
- American immunologists
- American women immunologists
- University of Maryland, College Park faculty
- Marquette University alumni
- National Institutes of Health people
- 20th-century American women scientists
- 21st-century American women scientists
- American medical researchers
- American women medical researchers
- People from Bethesda, Maryland