Professor
Mayo Clinic Arizona
Diane F. Jelinek, Ph.D., is a Professor of Immunology in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science and a consultant in the Department of Immunology at the Mayo Clinic campus in Arizona. She is further recognized with the distinction of the Gene and Mary Lou Kurtz Professorship in Multiple Myeloma Research. Dr. Jelinek received her B.S. in microbiology at Michigan State University and her Ph.D. at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center. She completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in immunology and a four-year fellowship in molecular biology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Throughout her career, Dr. Jelinek has been funded by the National Institutes of Health for her work on normal and malignant B lymphocytes. She has an extensive track record investigating the regulation of malignant plasma cell growth and survival, and her laboratory and collaborators have provided new insights into the biology of myeloma cells, particularly as it concerns molecules that drive tumor cell growth. In addition, her laboratory has established a unique panel of human myeloma cell lines that provide an invaluable investigational tool for her studies of multiple myeloma, as well as for a large number of other investigators at Mayo and elsewhere who share an interest in the monoclonal gammopathies. Dr. Jelinek is also very involved in educational activities at Mayo Clinic. She has trained a significant number of predoctoral and doctoral students, and she is a two-time recipient of the Teacher of the Year Award. She was also recognized as a Distinguished Mayo Educator. She has given many invited presentations and presentations as a visiting professor, and she has co-authored more than 350 articles, book chapters, editorials, abstracts and letters.