Awards
- Titled Professor (Emeritus) - 2007
- Chancellor's Professor of Microbiology and Immunology
Professor Roman received a B.S. degree from Reed College in 1967 and a Ph.D. in Biology from University of California, San Diego in 1973. After a postdoctoral experience at University of Oregon Health Sciences Center, she joined the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Indiana University School of Medicine in 1975. She is currently Associate Chairperson of the Department, member of the Walther Oncology Center, and Program Director of the Cancer Biology Training Program. Professor Roman's research has centered on the molecular basis of disease caused by human papillomaviruses. Her focus has been to understand why some members of this virus family cause benign disease while others cause malignancies. Important contributions include identifying a cellular protein which negatively regulates both expression and replication of the human papillomavirus genomes, and demonstrating that a cellular regulator of proliferation and differentiation was targeted for degradation by a viral protein. This work has significant implications for the development of diagnostic biomarkers and/or therapeutic targets of HPV-mediated disease. Her research has been funded by the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, and the NIH. Professor Roman has served or serves on the editorial boards of Intervirology and Virology. She has chaired a study section in the American Cancer Society and been a regular member of the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute Cancer Manpower and Training Subcommittee and NIH Special Emphasis Panels. She has been Co-organizer of several Molecular Biology of Small DNA Tumor Viruses Meetings and on the Scientific Committee for International Papillomavirus Workshops. She is the recipient of a Trustee Teaching Award and twice the recipient of the Randy S. Rosenthal Graduate Student Advocacy Award.