Dr. Robin Dewar received her Ph.D. in microbiology from Georgetown University in 1986 and began a Fogarty Fellowship at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases under Dr. Norman Salzman shortly thereafter. When Salzman moved to Georgetown University to take over the reins of the HIV program, Dewar went along and became the head of the HIV Virus Isolation Laboratory (VIL). In 1994, Salzman’s entire Georgetown operation moved to Frederick, Maryland, under Dr. Michael Baseler. There, the VIL merged with the HIV Serology Laboratory to become the Virus Isolation and Serology Laboratory under Dewar. The primary goal of the new laboratory was to provide clinical laboratory support for HIV clinical trials conducted by the NIAID OP8 infectious diseases clinic and its collaborators.
Over the decades, since relocating to Frederick, the laboratory broadened its scope to include clinical trial support for hepatitis B, hepatitis C, Zika, influenza, tuberculosis, and—most recently—SARS-CoV-2 studies. During the COVID-19 pandemic, under Dewar’s expert guidance, the Virus Isolation and Serology Laboratory became an internationally recognized reference laboratory, producing antigen, antibody, and genotyping results for international clinical trials. With over 100 publications, the laboratory has made major contributions to the field of virology.
