Dr. Nanette Jean Pazdernik, is a co-author of Biotechnology (now in its 2nd edition) and Molecular Biology (now in 3rd edition), with Dr. David P. Clark. The 2nd edition of Molecular Biology won a Texty award from the Textbook and Academic Authors Association in 2013. She has also authored an on-line study guide to accompany the updated edition of Molecular Biology. She has taught courses in Genetics, General Biology, as well as Anatomy and Physiology at Southwestern Illinois College, McKendree University, and Harris-Stowe University. She got her BA in Biology from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1990 and her Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular, Developmental Biology and Genetics from the University of Minnesota in 1996. Dr. Pazdernik’s doctoral thesis studied how alterations in the structure of lactose permease affect its ability to transport sugar across the membrane of E. coli. Following her degrees, she investigated the IL-1 and TNF signal transduction pathways that control apoptosis and immunity at Indiana University School of Medicine. She has most recently studied the various molecules that maintain stem cell fate in C. elegans at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO.