Dr. Ajit Varki is the 2017 Willison Lectureship invited speaker:
The Willison Lectureship
In May of 1988, Frances Willison Bishop, Ph.D, established the "Dr. Clayton Willison and Emma Elizabeth Willison Fund" in memory of her parents, as a trust with the University of Michigan. The purpose of the fund is to "benefit the Department of Microbiology and Immunology for research in the cause, prevention, and control of disease and for honorariums for one guest lecture each year in the field of microbiology and immunology, which lectures shall be known as the Willison Lectureship."
Dr. Bishop was born in 1898, and received her B.A. degree from the University of Michigan, School of Literature, Science, and the Arts in 1921. She received her Ph.D degree from the University of Michigan Department of Microbiology in 1942. The title of her dissertation was "The Effect Produced In Vitro by Vitamin C on the Toxic and Antigenic Properties of Diphtheria Toxin". Dr. Bishop taught for 16 years at the University of Oklahoma. She passed away at the age of 95 in July of 1993.