Janice E. Clements

Janice Ellen Clements is vice dean for faculty at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Mary Wallace Stanton Professor of Faculty Affairs. She is a professor in the departments of Molecular and Comparative Pathobiology, Neurology, and Pathology, and has a joint appointment in molecular biology and genetics. Her molecular biology and virology research examines lentiviruses and how they cause neurological diseases.

Training and career Clements earned a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Maryland. She pursued post-doctoral work at Johns Hopkins during the 1970s, working first with Bernard Weiss and then with Opendra "Bill" Narayan and Richard T. Johnson. This article helped to establish HIV as a lentivirus, not a leukemia virus as was originally thought. At the time, the origin of HIV was unknown, and Clements' work presented the possibility that HIV could have been transferred to humans from animals. Later, it was found that simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) strains from chimpanzee and monkey hosts were the likely progenitors of HIV.

In addition to her work with visna and CAEV, Clements has conducted extensive research into SIV and HIV. Clements and her laboratory have published over 160 scientific articles. Alongside collaborators including Chris Zink, Joseph L. Mankowski, and Kenneth Witwer, Clements has investigated the innate immune response to retrovirus infection in an animal model of HIV encephalitis. Her recent work includes the use of minocycline, a common antibiotic often used against acne, to protect against viral encephalitis and slow viral replication. With Zink, Mankowski and HIV researchers Joel Blankson and Bob Siliciano, Clements has also developed a model of highly active antiretroviral therapy to study viral reservoirs: where HIV conceals itself in the body.

Advocacy Clements has advocated and fostered the creation of opportunities and supportive environments for women in academia. She is a member of the steering committee of the Johns Hopkins Women's Leadership Council.

In 2005, the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine celebrated the promotion of the 100th woman to the rank of full professor in a ceremony organized by Clements and others at Johns Hopkins. The event was entitled "The Legacy of Mary Elizabeth Garrett, 100 Women Professors at Johns Hopkins Medicine" to honor the woman whose financial gift allowed the school of medicine to begin its first cohort of medical students in 1893. Garrett herself had stressed the importance of equal opportunity in medical education, specifying that the school must allow women and men alike to seek admission and "prizes, dignities or honor that are awarded by competitive examination, or regarded as rewards of merit."