The 2009 Paul F. Clark lectures will be by Michael Brenner, MD, Ph.D. on Ocobert 2 and Alan Sher, Ph.D. on November 13.

The endowment to support this lecture series was provided by Paul F. Clark's family upon his death in 1983. In 1935, Dr. Clark became the first Chair of the Department of Medical Microbiology, then called the Department of Medical Bacteriology. He served as the Chair until 1947 and retired from the university in 1952. His research focused on viral diseases, especially poliomyelitis and viral encephalopathies. Aside from his research on viral diseases, very early in his career he published a classic paper related to public health microbiology in the 1916 Journal of Bacteriology. He traced the cause of an outbreak of streptococcal pharyngitis in the UW women's dormitories to the water fountains. To reduce the bacterial contamination of the fountains he suggested the simple design change of directing the water at an angle rather than vertically as was the case at the time. In 1932 he served as the President of the Society of American Bacteriologists which later became the American Society for Microbiology. Although generally perceived as a demanding and no nonsense taskmaster, his presidential address to the Society of American Bacteriologists entitled "Alice in Virusland" reveals that he also possessed whimsical, poetic and philosophical sides to his personality.