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Villa-Komaroff, Lydia

Lydia Villa-Komaroff is a renowned molecular biologist and neurobiologist who is committed to encouraging the education and success of women and minorities in the sciences. She was one of the first Mexican American women to receive a Ph.D. in the sciences and has served as a role model for other minority women through her distinguished career in academia, government, and business. She was named one of the 100 Most Influential Hispanics in America by Hispanic Business Magazine in 2003.

Villa-Komaroff's research focuses on growth factors in brain development and the flow of genetic information in the nervous system. As a researcher at Harvard University in the 1970s, she worked in the lab of Nobel laureate Walter Gilbert as part of a team that used new DNA cloning techniques to synthesize proteins in bacteria. They developed a patented process to produce a synthetic insulin that is used by many diabetics today. This was the first time that a human hormone had been created synthetically from bacteria, and the work led to other research breakthroughs for Villa-Komaroff in human insulin production and cell development in the brain.

Background and Education

Lydia Villa was born August 7, 1947, in Las Vegas, New Mexico, the first of six children born to a violinist father and a social worker mother. Her parents were both the first members of their families to get a college education, and Lydia was inspired to study science by an uncle who was a chemist and a grandmother who shared her love of nature. In high school, she had the opportunity to participate in a National Science Foundation summer program for minorities. She enrolled at the University of Washington at Seattle, but transferred to Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland, when she followed her future husband to the East Coast for his career. She gained valuable experience working summers at the National Institutes of Health and received a bachelor's degree in biology from Goucher College in 1970.

She went on to earn a doctorate in cell biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1975, where she completed dissertation research on the poliovirus. Because of her experiences as a Latina, Villa-Komaroff has been particularly committed to the education and retention of women and minorities in science careers. She has served on national committees related to minority education in science and technology, and was one of the founding members of the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS).

Career Milestones

Villa-Komaroff has held several research and teaching positions, including professor of molecular genetics and microbiology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (1978-85), a neurosciences researcher at Children's Hospital of Boston (1985-95), professor of genetics and neurology at Harvard Medical School (1985-96), and professor of neurology and vice president of research at Northwestern University (1996-2002). She served as vice president of research and chief operating officer of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT (2003-05), and in 2005 became chief scientific officer of Cytonome, Inc., a biotechnology firm that develops products for cell research. She has also served as a consultant or advisory committee member on genetics and neurological studies at the National Institutes of Health.

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