Leslie B. Vosshall

Leslie Birgit Vosshall (born July 5, 1965) is an American

Leslie Vosshall was born in Lausanne, Switzerland where she spent most of her early childhood. Vosshall moved to New Jersey when she was 8 years old. She spent summers from age 17 to 19 working in the laboratory of her uncle, Philip Dunham, with Gerald Weissmann at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole. Vosshall said this experience was "an incredible introduction to the practice of science."^[4]

Education

Vosshall received her B.A. in biochemistry^[5] from Columbia University in 1987 and her Ph.D. from Rockefeller University in 1993. She returned to Columbia for a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of future Nobel laureate Richard Axel from 1993-1997. She then worked in the position of Associate Research Scientist in Dr. Axel's laboratory from 1997-2000. Vosshall was offered the position of Assistant Professor at The Rockefeller University in 2000, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2006.^[1] In April 2010, she was granted tenure and is currently the Robin Chemers Neustein Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Behavior.^[6] She served as associate director of the Kavli Neural Systems Institute from 2015-2016 and was promoted to director in 2016.^[1]

Research

Vosshall’s laboratory studies three organisms: fruit flies, mosquitoes and humans, to understand the genetic and molecular underpinnings, as well as behavioral mechanisms, involved in olfaction and feeding behavior.

• Beckman Young Investigator Award (2001)^[15]
• McKnight Neuroscience Scholar Award (2001)
• National Science Foundation Early Career Development Award (2001)
• John Merck Fund Scholar (2002)
• Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2002)
• New York City Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Science and Technology (2005)
• Irma T. Hirschl/Monique Weill-Caulier Trust Research Award (2005)^[1]
• Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists (2007).^[16]
• Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator (2008)^[17][18]
• Lawrence C. Katz Prize, Duke University (2009)^[1]
• Dart/NYU Biotechnology Achievement Award (2010)^[19]
• Gill Young Investigator Award (2011)
• Member, National Academy of Sciences (2015)^[20]
• Pradel Research Award (2020)
• Member, National Academy of Medicine (2021)^[21]

Key papers

• Vosshall LB, Amrein H, Morozov PS, Rzhetsky A, Axel R (March 1999). "A spatial map of olfactory receptor expression in the Drosophila antenna". Cell. 96 (5): 725–36.
  S2CID 9216020
  .
• Vosshall LB, Wong AM, Axel R (July 2000). "An olfactory sensory map in the fly brain". Cell. 102 (2): 147–59.
  S2CID 17573876
  .
• DeGennaro M, McBride CS, Seeholzer L, Nakagawa T, Dennis EJ, Goldman C, Jasinskiene N, James AA, Vosshall LB (29 May 2013). "orco mutant mosquitoes lose strong preference for humans and are not repelled by volatile DEET". Nature. 498 (7455): 487–491.
  PMID 23719379
  .
• Larsson MC, Domingos AI, Jones WD, Chiappe ME, Amrein H, Vosshall LB (September 2 2004). "Or83b Encodes a Broadly Expressed Odorant Receptor Essential for Drosophila Olfaction". Neuron. 43 (5): 703–714. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2004.08.019. ISSN 0896-6273

• McBride, C.S. et al. Evolution of mosquito preference for humans linked to an odorant receptor. Nature 515, 222–227 (2014).[10]
• Bushdid, C. et al. Humans can discriminate more than 1 trillion olfactory stimuli. Science 343, 1370–1372 (2014).^[22]
• McMeniman, C.J. et al. Multimodal Integration of Carbon Dioxide and Other Sensory Cues Drives Mosquito Attraction to Humans. Cell 156,1060-1071 (2014).^[23]

References