Polly Roy

Bluetongue virus
Electron micrograph of Bluetongue virus. Scale bar = 50 nm.
Virus classification
Group:	Group III (dsRNA)
Order:	Unassigned
Family:	Reoviridae
Genus:	Orbivirus
Species:	Bluetongue virus

Polly Roy OBE is a professor and Chair of Virology at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.^[1] She attended a number of schools which included Colombia University Medical School, Rutgers University, University of Alabama, and University of Oxford. In 2001 is when she became a part of The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and, along with being the chair of Virology, she is also the co-organizer of the medical microbiology course. The virus that she has dedicated most of her career to is Bluetongue disease that affects sheep and cattle. She became interested in this virus after attending a symposium and was intrigued by the fact that not much was known about the virus that was causing such a nasty and sometimes fatal disease.^[2]

Education

Dr. Polly Roy went to Presidency College in Calcutta, India, where she was born. She than received a scholarship to study at New York University to receive her Ph.D. While she was studying biological sciences she met biologist Sol Spiegelman. Dr. Polly Roy then spent three years in a post-doctoral position in RNA Virology at Waksman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers University. After her post-doctoral work, she went to the University of Alabama at Birmingham to begin her own Blue Tongue Virus research group. She became a professor at University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1987. Dr. Polly Roy then received the Fogarty Fellowship at the University of Oxford where she became a professor in 1997. In 2001 Dr. Polly Roy became a Virology professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.^[3]

Research interests^[4]

• RNA Virology
• Viral Genetics
• Protein Function & Capsid Assembly
• Replication of Segmented Genome & Packaging
• Virus Trafficking in Host Cell
• Technology Development & Generation of Particulate Vaccines

Contributions to our understanding of Blue Tongue Virus^[5]

• Viral Structure
• Viral Assembly
• RNA Replication
• Virus Release
• Supervised Post-doctoral & Post-graduate Researchers
• Published close to 300 Research Papers
• Served on Many Different Scientific Organizations, Committees, & Boards
• Organized International Conferences
  • In 2006 Dr. Polly Roy was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences for Conference on Viral Assembly

Honors and awards

• Senior Investigator Award from the Welcome Trust (2012)
• Recipient of the Indian Science Congress General President's Gold Medal, awarded by the Prime Minister of India (2012)
• 'Innovator of the Year' Finalist, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) (2012)
• Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2014 Birthday Honours, for services to virus research^[6]
• Elected Fellow of the Society of Biology (2014)^[2]

References