Lennette graduated from Pittsburgh's South Side High School in 1925.[2] From 1925 to 1927 he was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago. In 1927, he dropped out because of economic necessity. From 1927 to 1929 he worked in the accounting department of a large chemical company in New York City. In the autumn of 1929 he resumed his undergraduate education as a junior in the University of Chicago's class of 1931.[3] He graduated from the University of Chicago in 1931 with a B.S. and in 1935 with a Ph.D. His Ph.D. thesis on cellular immunity was supervised by N. Paul Hudson. Lennette received his M.D. in 1936 from Rush Medical College in 1936. He was a medical intern at Chicago's St. Luke's Hospital from July 1937 to July 1938.[4] At the University of Chicago he was an instructor in bacteriology from 1936 to 1937 and a research associate from 1937 to 1938.[5] At the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis he was an instructor in pathology from 1938 to 1939. From 1939 to 1946 he was a staff member of the Rockefeller Foundation's International Health Division. From 1941 to 1944 he was stationed in Brazil and did research on yellow fever and encephalitis viruses. From 1944 to 1946 he was assigned to the Rockefeller Foundation's Influenza Research Laboratory in Berkeley, California. There he did research on hepatitis and encephalitis and was one of the founding members of the USA's first civilian laboratory dedicated to diagnostic virology. For 18 months from 1946 to 1947, he was the chief of the U.S. Army's Medical-Veterniary Division in the Chemical Corps at Camp Detrick. In Berkeley, he was the director of the Viral and Rickettsial Disease Laboratory (VRDL) of the California Department of Public Health from 1947 to 1978, when he retired.[1] At the VRDL, he was the successor to Monroe Eaton (1904–1958). The VRDL was founded in 1939 as the Influenza Research Laboratory.[6]
Lennette's research on Q fever in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s gained him an international reputation as a scientist and physician.[6] He served as a consultant for several organizations, including the World Health Organization[7] and the Department of the Army.[6] In the 1940s, Lennette and Koprowski published important findings on the influences of murine age on several murine viral infections[8] and on the effects of in vitro cultivation on the pathogencity in mice for the Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEEV).[9]
Fox, John P.; Lennette, Edwin H.; Manso, Caio; Aguiar, Jacy R. Souza (1942). "Encephalitis in Man Following Vaccination with 17 D Yellow Fever Virus1". American Journal of Epidemiology. 36 (2): 117–142. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a118811.
Clark, William H.; Lennette, E. H.; Railsback, O. C.; Romer, M. S. (1951). "Q Fever in California". A.M.A. Archives of Internal Medicine. 88 (2): 155–167. doi:10.1001/archinte.1951.03810080023003. PMID14856445.
Welsh, Hartwell H.; Lennette, Edwin H.; Abinanti, Francis R.; Winn, John F. (1951). "Q Fever in California: IV. Occurrence of Coxiella burnetii in the Placenta of Naturally Infected Sheep". Public Health Reports. 66 (45): 1473–1477. doi:10.2307/4587909. JSTOR4587909. PMID14875906.
Movitt, Eli R.; Lennette, Edwin H.; Mangum, Jack F.; Berk, Morris; Bowman, Murdock S. (1958). "Acute Benign Pericarditis". New England Journal of Medicine. 258 (22): 1082–1086. doi:10.1056/NEJM195805292582204.
Wright, Harry T.; Landing, Benjamin H.; Lennette, Edwin H.; McAllister, Robert M. (1963). "Fatal Infection in an Infant Associated with Coxsackie Virus Group A, Type 16". New England Journal of Medicine. 268 (19): 1041–1044. doi:10.1056/NEJM196305092681904. PMID14001956.
Schieble, Jack H.; Fox, Virginia L.; Lennette, Edwin H. (1967). "A Probable New Human Picornavirus Associated with Respiratory Disease1". American Journal of Epidemiology. 85 (2): 297–310. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a120693. PMID4960233.
Chin, James; Magoffin, Robert L.; Shearer, Lois ANN; Schieble, Jack H.; Lennette, Edwin H. (1969). "Field Evaluation of a Respiratory Syncytial Virus Vaccine and a Trivalent Parainfluenza Virus Vaccine in a Pediatric Population1". American Journal of Epidemiology. 89 (4): 449–463. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a120957. PMID4305200.
Boyle, William F.; Riggs, John L.; Oshiro, Lyndon S.; Lennette, Edwin H. (1973). "Electron Microscopic Identification of Papova Virus in Laryngeal Papilloma". The Laryngoscope. 83 (7): 1102–1108. doi:10.1288/00005537-197307000-00013. PMID4352522. S2CID43017237.
Schmidt, N. J.; Lennette, E. H.; Ho, H. H. (1974). "An Apparently New Enterovirus Isolated from Patients with Disease of the Central Nervous System". Journal of Infectious Diseases. 129 (3): 304–309. doi:10.1093/infdis/129.3.304. PMID4361245.
Weil, Marvin L.; Itabashi, Hideo H.; Cremer, Natalie E.; Oshiro, Lyndon S.; Lennette, Edwin H.; Carnay, Laurence (1975). "Chronic Progressive Panencephalitis Due to Rubella Virus Simulating Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis". New England Journal of Medicine. 292 (19): 994–998. doi:10.1056/NEJM197505082921903. PMID47149.
^"Statement of Dr. Edwin H. Lennette, May 15. 1969". Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, 91st Congress, 1st Session, Part 7, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Appropriations for 1970. 1970. p. 142.
