Susan Mary Lea (born 1969) is a British biologist who serves as chief of the center for structural biology at the

National Cancer Institute The National Cancer Institute (NCI) coordinates the United States National Cancer Program and is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is one of eleven agencies that are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ...

. Her research investigates host-pathogen interactions and biomolecular pathways. She was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

in 2022.

Early life and education

Lea was educated at Oxford High School and

New College, Oxford New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as its feeder school, New College is one of the oldest colleges at th ...

where she received a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

degree in Physiological Sciences in 1990. Lea was a graduate researcher in the laboratory of molecular biophysics at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, where she worked under the supervision of David Stuart. During her doctoral research she made use of

X-ray crystallography X-ray crystallography is the experimental science determining the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal, in which the crystalline structure causes a beam of incident X-rays to diffract into many specific directions. By measuring the angles ...

to better understand

foot-and-mouth disease Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) or hoof-and-mouth disease (HMD) is an infectious and sometimes fatal viral disease that affects cloven-hoofed animals, including domestic and wild bovids. The virus causes a high fever lasting two to six days, followe ...

Research and career

After her DPhil, she was awarded a

Dorothy Hodgkin Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin (née Crowfoot; 12 May 1910 – 29 July 1994) was a Nobel Prize-winning British chemist who advanced the technique of X-ray crystallography to determine the structure of biomolecules, which became essential fo ...

fellowship and started her independent research group in the department of biochemistry. Her research looked to understand the structure-property relationships of human enteroviruses and their receptors. Lea moved to the

Sir William Dunn School of Pathology The Sir William Dunn School of Pathology is a department within the University of Oxford. Its research programme includes the cellular and molecular biology of pathogens, the immune response, cancer and cardiovascular disease. It teaches undergra ...

at Oxford, where she was appointed lecturer in 1999, with a tutorial fellowship at

Brasenose College, Oxford Brasenose College (BNC) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It began as Brasenose Hall in the 13th century, before being founded as a college in 1509. The library and chapel were added in the mi ...

, and chair of

microbiology Microbiology () is the scientific study of microorganisms, those being unicellular (single cell), multicellular (cell colony), or acellular (lacking cells). Microbiology encompasses numerous sub-disciplines including virology, bacteriology, prot ...

in 2016, with a professorial fellowship at

Wadham College, Oxford Wadham College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is located in the centre of Oxford, at the intersection of Broad Street and Parks Road. Wadham College was founded in 1610 by Dorothy W ...

. In 2021, Lea moved to the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

, and was appointed Chief of the Center for Structural Biology at the

. Lea makes use of structural information from cryogenic electron microscopy and

x-ray crystallography X-ray crystallography is the experimental science determining the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal, in which the crystalline structure causes a beam of incident X-rays to diffract into many specific directions. By measuring the angles ...

to understand biomolecules and medical pathways. She is particularly interested in molecular complexes that can cross the cellular membrane. She studies the serum resident protein cascades that are involved in immune responses. Lea has studied the interactions that define bacterial meningitis and dysentery. She determined the molecular architecture of the

flagellum A flagellum (; ) is a hairlike appendage that protrudes from certain plant and animal sperm cells, and from a wide range of microorganisms to provide motility. Many protists with flagella are termed as flagellates. A microorganism may have f ...

Awards and honours

* Elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) * Elected Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences * Elected Fellow of the American Society for Microbiology * Elected

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

Selected publications

Her publications include: * ''Refinement of severely incomplete structures with maximum likelihood in BUSTER-TNT'' * ''Structure of a major immunogenic site on foot-and-mouth disease virus'' * ''The structure and function of a foot-and-mouth disease virus-oligosaccharide receptor complex''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lea, Susan Living people Alumni of the University of Oxford British women scientists 20th-century British scientists 21st-century British scientists National Institutes of Health people Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom) Fellows of the American Academy of Microbiology People educated at Oxford High School, England X-ray crystallography Structural biologists Members of the European Molecular Biology Organization 1969 births