Melanie OttMelanie Ott, MD, PhD

Director, Gladstone Institute of Virology

 

A native of Germany, Melanie Ott, MD, PhD, is the director of the Gladstone Institute of Virology, a senior investigator at Gladstone Institutes, and a professor of medicine at UCSF.

Ott is passionate about using viruses to find fundamental new biology in host cells. She has made important discoveries about how viruses—including the hepatitis C virus and Zika—hijack human cells, and has contributed to efforts to eradicate HIV by gaining insight into viral transcriptional control. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, she pivoted the focus of her team and spearheaded the effort to establish a dedicated airborne pathogen BSL-3 lab to enable work on live SARS-CoV-2.

Prior to joining Gladstone in 2002, Ott started her own research group at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, Germany, working closely with Nobel laureate Harald zur Hausen. She is a trained neurologist with an MD from the University of Frankfurt/Main in Germany. She transitioned to basic virology research during the AIDS crisis, earning a PhD in molecular medicine from the Elmezzi Graduate School in Manhasset, New York.

Ott has received several honors, including the Young Researcher Award at the European Conference on Experimental AIDS Research and the Hellman Award. She is a member of the Association of American Physicians and a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. She is a recipient of the Chancellor’s Award for Public Service from UCSF for her work as the founder and co-chair of the student outreach committee at Gladstone. Ott also received the California Life Sciences Association’s Biotechnology Educator Pantheon Award for establishing the PUMAS (Promoting Underrepresented Minorities Advancing in the Sciences) internship program at Gladstone, which seeks to increase diversity in STEM.