Jean Pfau received her Ph.D. in Microbiology/Biochemistry at the University of Montana
Her post-doctoral training fostered her true passion for inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, which became her research focus. In 2001, Dr. Pfau joined a distinguished team of researchers from around the country to explore the health effects of asbestos, due to an unexpectedly high prevalence of systemic autoimmune diseases in a community exposed to asbestiform amphibole fibers; Libby, Montana.
This led to a translational research collaboration with the Center for Asbestos Related Diseases (CARD), focused on environmental autoimmune disease. Her lab developed a mouse exposure model to explore mechanisms of autoimmunity by silica and asbestos in order to validate asbestos as a causative agent for systemic and pleural autoimmune disease. Her work with both mice and human subjects has been consistently funded by the CDC, ATSDR and the NIH.
She has published over 60 journal articles and 7 book chapters, and has collaborated with researchers across the U.S. as well as in Western Australia, Canada, and South Africa. Currently partially retired from Montana State University in Bozeman, Dr. Pfau teaches graduate courses in Physiology for the WIMU Regional Program in Veterinary Medicine, and continues to serve as a consultant with the CARD in Libby.
