Ana Jonas

Ana Masiulis Jonas (November 24, 1943 – June 12, 2024) was an American biochemist born in Lithuania. She was on the faculty of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) from 1974 until 2001. Her research "advanced our understanding of the role lipoproteins play in cardiovascular disease".

Early life and education Ana Masiulis was born in Rokiškis, Lithuania. and completed doctoral studies in biochemistry at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in 1970. Her doctoral dissertation was titled "Physicochemical Studies on the Tertiary Structure of Bovine Serum Albumin." She was granted United States citizenship in 1967. She also studied the enzyme lecithin–cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT).

Publications "Micellar complexes of human apolipoprotein A-I with phosphatidylcholines and cholesterol prepared from cholate-lipid dispersions" (1982, with C. E. Matz) "Discoidal complexes of A and C apolipoproteins with lipids and their reactions with lecithin: cholesterol acyltransferase" (1984, with S. A. Sweeny and P. N. Herbert) "Defined apolipoprotein AI conformations in reconstituted high density lipoprotein discs" (1989, with K. E. Kézdy and J. H. Wald) "NMR Study of the Cold, Heat, and Pressure Unfolding of Ribonuclease A" (1995, with Jing Zhang, Xiangdong Peng, and Jiri Jonas) "The role of apolipoprotein AI domains in lipid binding" (1996, with W. Sean Davidson, Theodore Hazlett, and William W. Mantulin) "Predicting the structure of apolipoprotein A-I in reconstituted high-density lipoprotein disks" (1997, with J. C. Phillips, W. Wriggers, Z. Li, and K. Schulten) "Regulation of lecithin cholesterol acyltransferase activity" (1998) "Stabilization of α-Synuclein Secondary Structure upon Binding to Synthetic Membranes" (1998, with W. Sean Davidson, David F. Clayton, and Julia M. George)

Personal life Ana Masiulis married Czech-born chemist Jiri Jonas in 1968. The Jonases retired to Naples, Florida, in 2001. She died in 2024, at the age of 79, while vacationing in Alaska.