Janet Hemingway


Janet Hemingway is a British entomologist, Professor of Insect Molecular Biology and Director of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. She also works on advocacy and resource mobilisation at the Innovative Vector Control Consortium , and is International Director of the Joint Centre for Infectious Diseases Research, Jizan, Saudi Arabia. She is "the youngest woman to ever to become a full professor in the UK".

Early life and education

Hemingway was born in a small mining town in West Yorkshire in 1957 to parents who owned a corner shop. She obtained a first-class honours degree in zoology and genetics from the University of Sheffield, where she set up the university's first mosquito insectary as part of her thesis project. She was invited to pursue a PhD at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and within two years had obtained her doctorate on the biochemistry and genetics of insecticide resistance in Anopheles mosquitoes.

Research and career

Hemingway has 30 years of experience working on the biochemistry and molecular biology of specific enzyme systems associated with xenobiotic resistance, most notably the malaria-transmitting mosquito.
Hemingway is distinguished as the international authority on insecticide resistance in insect vectors of disease. She was first to report co-amplification of multiple genes on a single amplicon and demonstrate their impact on disease transmission. Her studies on resistance management have transformed the use of insecticide by disease control programmes. Her promotion of evidence-based monitoring and evaluation strategies for insecticide resistance has guided and improved international policy on vector control strategies for Onchocerciasis, Malaria, and other vector borne diseases. Her rigorous scientific approach to resistance analysis has contributed to a greater understanding of resistance, its impact and spread and has minimised its effect in increasing human mortality and morbidity.

Awards and honours