Ruth Itzhaki graduated as a physicist, then carried out research for an MSc and PhD in Biophysics – all London University degrees. She subsequently moved to Cambridge, to the Department of Radiotherapeutics, holding a Beit Memorial Fellowship for Medical Research and the Wheldale-Onslow Memorial Fellowship at Newnham College, Cambridge University. Thereafter she took up at position at the Paterson Laboratories (cancer research) in Manchester, and then the University of Manchester. Itzhaki’s research topics have been diverse, including the first studies on the accessibility of chromatin to enzymes and polylysine, and more recently on Alzheimer’s disease, especially, the role of viruses in dementia, and the role of APOE in determining susceptibility to, or outcome of, infection. For the virus work, she has received several awards, including the Alzgerm Quest Prize and is currently a visiting professor at University of Oxford, and Prof. Emeritus at Manchester University. Itzhaki is also the author of a book on attitudes to and treatment of women in certain developing countries.
Her ate husband was a scientist, and both her non-identical twin daughters are scientists, one in Oxford and the other in Cambridge.
