HIV vaccine researcher Julie McElrath receives Women of Influence Award - Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

SEATTLE – Nov. 14, 2013 – Julie McElrath, M.D., Ph.D., an HIV vaccine researcher at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, is among 16 recipients of Puget Sound Business Journal’s 2013 Women of Influence Award. She accepted the honor last night at an award ceremony at the Hyatt Regency in Bellevue, Wash.

Now in its 10th year, the Women of Influence Award honors Seattle-area businesswomen, community leaders, and philanthropists who are a force in the region.

McElrath, senior vice president and director of the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division at Fred Hutch, has witnessed the devastation of the HIV epidemic since the early 1980s as an infectious disease physician caring for patients and as a clinical researcher overseeing international studies that may inform and accelerate HIV-vaccine development.

She is the principal investigator of the international HIV Vaccine Trials Network Laboratory Program and the Seattle HIV Vaccine Trials Unit. She is also a professor of allergy and infectious disease in the Department of Medicine at the University of Washington.

Her lab at Fred Hutch has identified some of HIV’s key mechanisms, and she has led and contributed to a number of national and international HIV-prevention efforts. Supported in part by the National Institutes of Health and by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, McElrath’s groundbreaking research generates new hope that a vaccine could end the epidemic.

McElrath was among 195 nominees for the Women of Influence Award this year; the other 15 recipients were:
    •    Ann Ardizzone, Alaska Airlines
    •    Adriane Brown, Intellectual Ventures
    •    Bernadine Griffin, The 5th Avenue Theatre
    •    Maria Hines, Maria Hines Restaurants (Tilth, Golden Beetle, Agrodolce)
    •    Toni Hoover, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
    •    Mary Knell, Wells Fargo Commercial Bank
    •    Beth Knox, Seafair
    •    Julie Larson-Green, Microsoft Corp.
    •    Stacy Lill, O Wines
    •    Elizabeth Lund, The Boeing Company
    •    Dr. Julie McElrath, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
    •    Sarah Patterson, Virginia Mason Medical Center
    •    Ann Ramsay-Jenkins, College Success Foundation
    •    Nancy Smith, Forklift Services of America Inc.
    •    Kellye Testy, University of Washington
    •    Jean Thompson, Seattle Chocolate Company