Do as I say not as I do boo

Clots and prayers

You only adopted the dark, I was born in it, molded by it…

And this earns a follow, my good human.

Roller derby. Club Rugby. Olympic style weightlifting.

They help.

The horrors persist but so do I. How are you

🤷‍♂️

Dr. JoAnn Leong is a pioneer. One of the mothers of retrovirology. Her name belongs alongside Montagnier, Barré-Sinoussi, Gallo, and Levy. Her impact is real—and deserves the recognition history hasn’t fully given her.
#WomenInSTEM #AAPIinSTEM #ScienceHistory #HIVAIDS #Virology #PrideMonth

She later pivoted to marine virology, where she became a global leader. Dr. Leong developed the first DNA vaccine for fish, saving salmon industries worldwide. Her innovations shaped fish health, aquaculture, and viral vaccine science for humans and animals alike.

Her work with Dr. Jay Levy (who later co-discovered HIV) laid critical groundwork for human retrovirus research. Without it, HIV’s discovery would’ve been far harder. But—like many women of color in science—her name is rarely part of the history.

I want to talk about one:

Before HIV was discovered, scientists were still asking: Do retroviruses even exist in humans?
In the 1970s, Dr. JoAnn Leong—a woman of color in virology—helped answer that. Her research proved human tissues contained reverse transcriptase, the key enzyme of retroviruses.