March 21, 2016

Dr. Lubomir (“Luboš”) Turek retired from the Department of Pathology of The University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine and from the Iowa City VA Medical Center on March 2, 2016 after an illustrious career spanning over 30 years. He has been appointed as Professor Emeritus.

After obtaining an MD at Charles University School of Medicine in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1975, Dr. Turek completed a fellowship in tumor virology as a Cancer Research Fellow of the Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Fund at the Department of Microbiology at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and later took his residency training in pathology as a Senior Staff Fellow in the Laboratory of Pathology at the National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD. Dr. Turek joined the UI Department of Pathology in June 1982.

Dr. Turek’s research at Iowa focused on human papillomavirus (HPV) infection. Together with his long-time collaborators, Drs. Elaine Smith from the Department of Epidemiology, UI College of Public Health, and Thomas Haugen, also from the Department of Pathology, the team made several important contributions to this field including demonstrating a connection between HPV and head and neck cancer. Dr. Turek and his collaborators maintained continuous federal funding for these projects for over 30 years.

In his retirement, Lubos plans to be in Prague much of the time, continuing research collaborations of over 20 years on HPV biology and epidemiology with colleagues at the Charles University School of Medicine amongst other retirement activities. His immediate focus is to improve his spoken French as his fifth language. We wish him all the best!