Edith M. Lord
Univ. of Rochester Sch. of Med. and Dent.
Edith M. Lord, Ph.D., DFAAI (AAI ’78), University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, is being honored with a 2022 AAI Distinguished Service Award. She provided invaluable service to AAI during her two-term tenure as AAI secretary-treasurer from 2015 to 2021. As an AAI officer, she also served as a voting member of the AAI Council.
Dr. Lord was serving as a member of the AAI Finance Committee at the time of her election as a Council officer, and ably steered the committee as its chair during her tenure as secretary-treasurer. During her tenure, the AAI fellowship program added two new categories: the Fellowship for Career Reentry and the Intersect Fellowship for Computational Scientists and Immunologists. These programs added critical support for postdoctoral fellows who had experienced a lapse of research training due to medical leave or family circumstances, or who wished to undertake cross-disciplinary training between immunology and computational science. Both programs were widely welcomed by AAI member recipients, who expressed how they were aided in their careers by the programs. While Dr. Lord was secretary-treasurer, AAI net assets grew from under $50 million to nearly $80 million, reflecting her commitment to bolstering the financial strength of the organization. She was a careful steward of the AAI finances and was always available with her advice, assistance, and wisdom.
In addition to her service at secretary-treasurer, Dr. Lord has served AAI as an abstract programming chair for the annual AAI meeting and as both an associate and section editor for The Journal of Immunology. She and then-University of Rochester graduate student Aditi Murthy (AAI ’15) also received the AAI Careers in Immunology Fellowship.
Dr. Lord completed her Ph.D. research at the University of California, San Diego, in the laboratory of Dr. Richard Dutton, DFAAI (AAI ’63; AAI President, 1995–1996) and her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco, in the laboratory of Dr. Daniel Stites (AAI ’73). She then joined the University of Rochester, where she worked her way up in the ranks, starting as a senior instructor of oncology. Dr. Lord currently serves as professor emerita of microbiology and immunology and oncology.
Dr. Lord studies the microenvironment of solid tumors. Her work has investigated how radiation therapy affects and alters this microenvironment and how radiation therapy interacts with steroids to affect the anti-tumor immune response. Recently, she has begun studying how the growth of nerves within the tumor microenvironment promotes tumor growth and survival. She is the recipient of the Davey Award for Cancer Research and has been recognized by the University of Rochester with the University Dean’s Award for Meritorious Service in Ph.D. Defenses, the Graduate Student Society Advocacy Award, and the University of Rochester Lifetime Mentoring Award. Dr. Lord has actively served the immunology community as a mentor to numerous fellows and trainees, as a consultant to companies, and as a member of National Institutes of Health study sections.
