Paula J. Olsiewski

Paula J. Olsiewski
Paula Olsiewski

Paula J. Olsiewski is an American biochemist. She is currently a Program Director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, where she created and directs the Foundation’s programs in the Microbiology of the Built Environment, the Chemistry of Indoor Environments and Civic Initiatives. She spearheaded and directed the Biosecurity program^[1][2][3] until its conclusion in 2011 and the Synthetic Biology program until its conclusion in 2014.

Education

Olsiewski holds a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Yale College, and a Doctor of Philosophy in biological chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1979) with a thesis on D-amino acid dehydrogenase evolution, supervised by Christopher T. Walsh. From 1980-1982 she was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of William H. Beers at New York University.

Biotech and Biomedical Commercial Development

Prior to her work at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Olsiewski directed commercial development for in vitro diagnostic products at Enzo Biochem, (NYSE:ENZ), a biotechnology company focused on the manipulation and modification of nucleic acids to produce therapeutic and diagnostic products.^[4] She directed the New York City Biotechnology Initiative, a state funded program to improve the region's ability to grow biotechnology companies by fostering relationships between industry and academia. She also established and directed the Technology Development Office at the Hospital for Special Surgery.^[5]

Board and Advisory Committee Roles

In 2001 she served on the Board of Advisors for the WMD Center’s Bio-Response Report Card.^[6] From 2003-2009 she was a member of the MIT Corporation. She was the first alumna to serve as President of the MIT Alumni Association (2003-2004), and served on the Advisory Board of the MIT Initiative on Faculty Race and Diversity^[7] (2008-2009). She was a member of the Committee on Advances in Technology and the Prevention of Their Application to Next Generation Biowarfare Threats, which produced the National Research Counsel Report “Globalization, Biosecurity, and the Future of Life Sciences”^[8] (2006). From 2005-2012 she served on the advisory board for the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). Currently she is a consultant to the National Counterproliferation Center, Chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors Homeland Security Research Subcommittee at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and on the Board of Directors at the Critical Path Institute.

Selected writings

Her most cited papers, according to Google Scholar:^[9]

• Olsiewski, Paula J., Gregory J. Kaczorowski, Christopher Walsh, and H. Ronald Kaback. "Reconstitution of Escherichia coli membrane vesicles with D-amino acid dehydrogenase." Biochemistry 20, no. 21 (1981): 6272-6279. cited 78 times
• Olsiewski, Paula J., G. J. Kaczorowski, and C. Walsh. "Purification and properties of D-amino acid dehydrogenase, an inducible membrane-bound iron-sulfur flavoenzyme from Escherichia coli B." Journal of Biological Chemistry 255, no. 10 (1980): 4487-4494.
• Olsiewski, Paula J., and William H. Beers. "cAMP synthesis in the rat oocyte." Developmental biology 100, no. 2 (1983): 287-293. cited 42 times
• Morse, Stephen S., Richard L. Garwin, and Paula J. Olsiewski. "Next flu pandemic: What to do until the vaccine arrives?." Science - 314, no. 5801 (2006): 929. cited 31 times

References