Janice E. Clements, PhD
Education
| BS | College of Mount Saint Vincent, New York NY | 1968 |
| PhD | University of Maryland, College Park MD | 1971 |
About
Janice E. Clements, Ph.D., is a professor of molecular and comparative pathobiology, the Mary Wallace Stanton Professor for Faculty Affairs, and serves as the vice dean for faculty at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Dr. Clements has been the Vice Dean of Faculty of the School of Medicine since 2000 and, in this role, oversees all policies and programs related to faculty appointments and promotions as well as faculty development.
Her research focuses on lentiviruses and their role in chronic neurological disease. She developed the first molecular and biochemical tools to study lentivirus molecular biology and was the first to characterize the unusual genome of the lentiviruses. She was also the first scientist to report that HIV is a lentivirus.
As director of the Retrovirus Laboratory, she and her team focus on the molecular virology and pathogenesis of lentivirus infections with emphasis on animal models of AIDS dementia and central nervous system (CNS) disease. Recent discoveries include the use of minocycline, a common antibiotic often used against acne, to protect against viral HIV-related cognitive disease.
Dr. Clements received her Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Maryland. She completed two postdoctoral fellowships at Johns Hopkins—one in molecular biology and virology and the other in neurology. Dr. Clements joined the Johns Hopkins faculty as an assistant professor of neurology in 1979 and then the faculty of the Division of Comparative Medicine in 1988. She was promoted to professor in 1990.
Dr. Clements was instrumental in the Division of Comparative Medicine becoming a department and served as its first director; it is now the Department of Molecular and Comparative Pathobiology. She has served as a member of the steering committee of the Johns Hopkins Women’s Leadership Council, helped to create the new position of associate dean for diversity and cultural competence, and urged changes in the composition of search committees to be more inclusive of women and minorities. She has also steered initiatives to improve the quality of teaching of residents and medical students at the school. In 2013, Dr. Clements was named to the National Institutes of Health’s Council of Councils to make recommendations on research in areas of emerging scientific opportunities, rising public health challenges, or knowledge gaps that deserve special emphasis.