John Lednicky,

John Lednicky has BS, MS, and PhD degrees in Microbiology. After graduation with a BS degree, he worked as a clinical microbiology technician and attained two professional certifications: M(ASCP) and RM(NRCM). For both certifications, his specialty areas were in bacteriology and mycology. Thereafter, he worked with Staphylococcus aureus for his MS degree, and had planned on pursuing a PhD in biochemical physics. Instead, he studied transcription regulation by transcription factor SP1 in a macaque polyomavirus (SV40) model for his PhD work.

Prior to joining the University of Florida, Dr. Lednicky was an assistant professor of pathology at the Loyola Medical Center in Illinois. He then worked in industry, where he engaged in biodefense-related work, aerobiology related to inhalation exposure studies in small animal models, various projects with avian influenza H5N1 and other influenza viruses, and the production of biodiesel from alga.

Dr. Lednicky’s current research focus areas at UF are: (a) aerovirology, (b) virus discovery, (c) virus surveillance with emphasis on arthropod-borne viruses, and (d) influenza virus studies. His laboratory discovered Rhinovirus C-51 and a unique variant of Human polyomavirus 9, and was the first to detect Zika and Mayaro viruses in Haitians. More recently, his laboratory was the first in the world to discover Madariaga and Keystone viruses in humans. His laboratory is also involved with the isolation of viruses that are causing lethal infections in farmed deer of Florida. Since January of 2020, a major thrust has been work related to COVID-19. His laboratory is isolating SARS-CoV-2 from humans and the environment, and he has posted a few full-genome sequences of these viruses in GenBank.

Dr. John Lednicky’s current research interests include the detection, isolation, and genetic analyses of influenza viruses (both human and animal), live agent bioaerosol inhalation studies, the detection, isolation and sequence analyses of respiratory viruses, polyomavirus regulatory region structure and function, molecular and classical diagnostic virology, development of human and animal virus detection, isolation and identification methodologies, and reverse genetics of RNA viruses.