2018 Richard Johnson Lectureship Janice Clements Professor and Director Molecular & Comparative Pathobiology Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Dr. Janice Clements trained as a postdoctoral fellow in 1973 in neurovirology with Richard T. Johnson in Neurology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She joined the Neurology faculty in 1978 and began her studies of the molecular and pathogenic properties of lentiviruses. She developed the first molecular clones of lentiviruses and characterized the molecular basis of antigenic variation within a single host. She co-authored the studies demonstrating that HIV was a lentivirus. Dr. Clements pioneered molecular pathogenesis studies of the simian immunodeficiency virus as a model for HIV and NeuroAIDS with Bill Narayan. She has led the Retrovirus Laboratory since 1992, developing an accelerated SIV model used to demonstrate the role of specific neurovirulent strains of the virus on infection of the brain and the molecular basis for the pathogenesis of HIV CNS disease. The Laboratory developed the first SIV model of ART, as well as the only CD4+ T cell and macrophage quantitative viral outgrowth assay (QVOA) for SIV, and showed that SIV latency in CD4+ T cells in blood and tissues was equivalent to latency in HIV suppressed individuals. The macrophage QVOA was further used to demonstrate that monocytes in blood and macrophages in brain and tissues contain latent SIV. This model is currently being used to study HIV/SIV latency and eradication.

Dr. Clements has also held the position of Vice Dean for Faculty since 2000. She created the Office of Faculty Development to support and advance the academic careers of faculty. In this role, she pioneered faculty salary equity studies since 2005 that reduced the disparity between male and female faculty salaries to less than 2%. In addition, she created the Office of Women in Science and Medicine to ensure the promotion of women faculty and the development of leadership programs for women that have increased the number of women professors from less than 100 in 2000 to over 250 women professors in 2017.