Josephine Clark-Curtiss

Josephine Clark-Curtiss is currently a professor of medicine with the Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Medicine, Department of Medicine with the University of Florida.

Dr. Clark-Curtiss initiated her research career during her PhD studies at the Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, Georgia. She then joined the research group of Roy Curtiss III at the University of Alabama at Birmingham for postdoctoral studies, initially analyzing the genetic bases for transfer of antibiotic resistance (R) plasmids among enterobacteria. With the inception of recombinant DNA technology, she became part of the Curtiss research team that constructed and characterized the first biologically contained “safe” strains c1776 and DP50 of Escherichia coli that, for a time, were the only approved bacterial strains with which investigators throughout the U.S. could conduct recombinant DNA research in the late 1970s.

Dr. Clark-Curtiss subsequently utilized recombinant DNA techniques to conduct research on mycobacteria, beginning in the early 1980s, when she and her colleagues constructed the first recombinant DNA libraries of any mycobacterial strain, thereby initiating molecular genetics research on Mycobacterium leprae and later, on M. tuberculosis and M. avium. 

Clark-Curtiss and her research group were among the first to identify specific genes that encoded M. leprae proteins and they were the first to demonstrate the presence of a repeated DNA sequence in the chromosome of M. leprae (now known as Rlep, which is used for the diagnosis of leprosy). Using restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analyses of genomes from M. leprae isolates from all over the world, Dr. Clark-Curtiss showed that the M. leprae genome is remarkably stable genetically. Dr. Clark-Curtiss’ research group was the first to identify genes encoding antigens of M. leprae that were recognized by antibodies in the sera of leprosy patients.