Dr. Diane E. Griffin, M.D. and Ph.D., is the university distinguished service professor and a professor in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she has taught for nearly a half-century. She was the department chair from 1994 to 2015 and has been one of the leading researchers in infectious virology for more than five decades, having been trained by the foremost researchers in the infant stage of the rapidly evolving field.
After graduating from Stanford Medical School in 1968, she began doing postdoctoral research in virology at Johns Hopkins University of Medical School and became a faculty member in 1973. She reached the rank of full professor in 1986.
Profiling her career in 2005, science writer Nick Zagorski explained that Griffin has conducted research into host immune responses to viral infections since she first arrived at Johns Hopkins. She stated at the time, “It’s such a fascinating area where both host [the person infected] and invader [pathogen/virus] can determine what the outcome is, whether an animal lives or dies.”
Zagorski wrote, “Her two primary areas of research include neurovirulence in Sindbis virus and immunosuppression induced by human measles virus. In both areas, Griffin’s research has revealed many of the mechanisms by which these viruses interact with their host and cause disease. She has received many accolades for her pioneering work, including elections to both the American Academy of Microbiology and both the National Academy of Medicine and National Academy of Sciences in 2004.”
With the growing awareness of the implication of Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 Infection (PASC or Long COVID) among adults, Griffin published a timely scientific article in
PLOS Biology in June that reviews the accumulated knowledge on why viral RNA persists in hosts after they have recovered from acute infections.
