A Legacy of Research
Ellen Fanning, Stevenson Professor of Biological Sciences and a professor of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, died Sept. 1, 2013, after a lengthy battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. She was 67.
Fanning joined Vanderbilt’s faculty in 1995 and served as chair of the Department of Molecular Biology from 1999 to 2002. She received the Chancellor’s Cup in 2005 and a Chancellor’s Award for Research in 2006.
Fanning’s research focused on DNA replication in mammalian cells. In 2002 she was one of 20 research scientists nationwide to receive $1 million during the next four years from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as part of an initiative to encourage researchers to put as much creativity into undergraduate education as they did into research. She used the funds to build what she called a “community of scholars” to give participating Vanderbilt undergraduates hands-on research experience. Many of her former undergraduate and graduate students went on to careers in science and medicine.
She earned her Ph.D. in 1977 from the University of Cologne and held faculty positions at the University of Konstanz and the University of Munich in Germany before coming to Vanderbilt. While a professor in Germany, Fanning was elected in 1995 to membership in the European Molecular Biology Organization. In 2007 she was elected a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences and to the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the oldest German-speaking society of scholars. In 2008 she received the Alexander von Humboldt-Forschungspreis, Germany’s highest research award for senior U.S. scientists and scholars, and in 2010 she was elected a fellow in the American Academy of Microbiology. She served on several study sections at the National Institutes of Health, editorial boards and advisory committees.
Fanning is survived by her husband, Stephen E. Pryor, and extended family members.