Med School Professor to Study Role of Cells Voiding Virus Infection

              The Shreveport Times
Metropolitan News
Sunday, July 16, 1972 Section C, Page One
Med School Professor
To Study Role of Cells
J
Voiding Virus Infection
. By Margaret Martin
Times Medical Writer
Why do some people have no
antibodies to a particular disease and
still resist virus infection?
There's no pat. answer now, but Dr.
Lucy Rasmussen, 32, is going to try to
find out.
She's the new assistant professor of
microbiology and immunology at Loui
siana State University Medical School at
Shrevcport.
Moves From Stanford
Straight from a postdoctoral fellowsh-ip
at Stanford University Medical School,
Dr. Rasmussen still hadn't unpacked
when interviewed in a borrowed office on
the 7th floor of the Veterans Administra-tion
Hospital.
Her list of credentials arp impressive.
A native of Houston, Tex., She did
undergraduate work in bacteriology at
the University of Texas; picked up a
master's degree in virology From Baylor
Medical School, received her doctor of
science degree from the Graduate School
of Public Health, University of Pittsburg,
Pa., and had spent a year at Stanford,
when the local school hired her away.
The opportunity for work, the position
and the laboratory space was better, she
explained, adding that even one of her
Stanford professors recommended that
she take it.
She will teach three or four months
before she begins her research problem
on "host resistance of virus infection
with the particular emphasis on the role
of the cell in mediated immunity in
virus infection."
That's a very complicated way of
saying that she'll be studying
immunity in preventing virus infection.
Studied Cold Sores
In her past wort, she studied viruses
which caused cold sores, trying to
(determine why some people are more
susceptible to them than others.
Always interested in science, she
decided in college to stay in research,
"because it was fun seeing how things
worked — digging and finding how
something worked.''
Virology (the study of diseases caused
by viruses) was "a new and interesting
area. There were so many aspects to it
Research is revealing that '"more and
more viruses are interacting with cells,"
she said.
For the future, Dr. Rasmussen is
excited about applying basic research to
human disease situations, "to the patient
as well as in the laboratory."
Asked the inevitabl question submit-ted
to any successful woman working in
a field usually dominated by men, "Have
you ever been discriminated against?"
the scientist said, "No."
She says that "she has been treated
with special courtesy, but quickly adds
that hers is a unique situation, an area of
work where each person "hauls his own
weight from the outset."
Researchists, she said, "Work as a
team."
"I am not expected to sit down and
type just because 1 am a woman Ph.d,"
she said.
Few Women Available
Lack of women on medcal school
staffs she atrribotes to the fact that
there aren't many women available to
pick up and go to a particular job.
"I'm not tied down . . . and when a
good job appears on the scene, I can take
lie said.
Dr. Rasmussen likes to snow ski ("I
won't be doing much of that around
here") and hike and plans to join the
local Sierra Club.
But she added, "I don't have time for
a lot of that. I'm too busy with my
research."
Dr. Lucy Rasmussen