Professor Gloria Rudenko who studied trypanosome parasites that cause African sleeping sickness sadly passed away on November 24th, 2022.
Professor Gloria Rudenko who studied trypanosome parasites that cause African sleeping sickness sadly passed away on November 24th, 2022, following a long, heroic battle with cancer.
She is best known for studying how trypanosomes switch their surface coat as a strategy to escape from antibody attack during a chronic infection. This coat is formed from a single protein known as the Variant Surface Glycoprotein (VSG) and protects the trypanosome from host-derived antibodies. The process of continuous switching of the VSG surface coat is referred to as antigenic variation.
Gloria made seminal discoveries regarding our understanding of how production of the VSG surface coat is connected to cell cycle progression in African trypanosomes and how different splicing factories facilitate production of high levels of VSG mRNAs. Her early work discovered that trypanosomes use RNA polymerase I (Pol I) to express procyclin, the major surface protein of insect stage parasites. This is unusual as other eukaryotes only use Pol I to transcribe rDNA, and no other eukaryote has been shown till date to use Pol I to transcribe protein coding genes.
Gloria touched so many lives and was an exceedingly caring, popular member of staff who was a gifted, inspirational scientist and teacher. She was a dedicated mentor to students and scientists at all levels, and a strong advocate for women scientists and ethnic minorities.
She had an unrivalled dedication to her research. Despite her long-fought battle with cancer, she maintained her research program for an extended period. This is testimony to her persistence, resilience, and her love for science. She had an uncanny knack of what constitutes rigorous science, and this is evident in the quality of her work. She was a truly exceptional scientist.
Gloria joined the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial in 2010, as a Reader in Molecular Microbiology before being promoted to Professor of Molecular Microbiology in 2015. Before Imperial, she was a Wellcome Senior Fellow at the University of Oxford, and a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Prof. Piet Borst at the Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam. She earned her PhD from the University of Amsterdam based on research performed in the Department of Genetics, Columbia University, New York, NY.
Her research group is located in the Sir Alexander Fleming Building. She will be sadly missed by all those who had the privilege and good fortune to know her, and especially by her students, research team and colleagues.
For anyone affected by Gloria’s death, please don’t hesitate to contact Dan Davis for support.
To collate all the wonderful thoughts and memories of Gloria from across our Department, we have set up an online ‘Book of Remembrance’, here.
By Dr Calvin Tiengwe
Article text (excluding photos or graphics) © Imperial College London.
Photos and graphics subject to third party copyright used with permission or © Imperial College London.
Reporter
Emily Govan
Department of Life Sciences
