Gail A. Bishop, Ph.D.

Gail A. Bishop received the Ph.D. degree in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, in 1983. Her doctoral thesis was in the area of the immune response to Herpes Simplex virus, under the mentorship of Drs. Joseph Glorioso and Stanley Schwartz. This was followed by postdoctoral work at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, in the laboratories of Drs. Geoffrey Haughton and Jeffrey Frelinger, focusing upon understanding the molecular mechanisms of B lymphocyte activation and the structure-function relationship of B cell signal receptors. She was appointed Assistant Professor of Microbiology at the University of Iowa in 1989, was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 1994, and to Professor in 1998. She was appointed as endowed College of Medicine Distinguished Professor of Microbiology in 2001, and Holden Chair of Cancer Biology in 2004. She holds a secondary appointment in Internal Medicine (Division of Immunology), and is also a member of the faculty of two interdisciplinary programs, Immunology and Molecular Biology. Since 1998, she has served as the Director of the Ph.D.-granting Immunology Graduate Program. In 2004, she was appointed Associate Director for Basic Science Research of the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Bishop was the 1996 Chair of the Autumn Immunology Conference in Chicago, IL, was an Associate Editor of The Journal of Immunology from 1994-98. She served on the Cell Biology and Signal Transduction grant review panel of the National Science Foundation from 1993-95, the Microbiology & Immunology review panel of the American Heart Association from 1995-98, and the NIH Experimental Immunology study section from 1998-2002. In 2006 Dr. Bishop served as the USA representative to a 6-member international panel meeting in Singapore to review immunology grants for the Singapore government. In 2009 Dr. Bishop was awarded the Iowa Technology Association’s “Woman of Innovation” award for academic research innovation and leadership. She recently completed a 2-year term of service as Chair of the NIH Tumors, Tolerance and Transplantation study section. Dr. Bishop is currently the Vice-President of the American Association of Immunologists.