Dr. Jannette M. Dufour is a University Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Cell Biology and Biochemistry in the School of Medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and Co-Director for Center of Excellence in Obesity and Cardiometabolic Research. She received her Ph.D. in Genetics and Cell Biology from Washington State University in 1999 and trained as a postdoctoral fellow with the Islet Transplantation Group in the Surgical Medical Research Institute, Department of Surgery at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada from 1999-2005.  

The focus of her research is to explore the therapeutic potential of immune privileged Sertoli cells as a means to improve outcomes of transplantation. Specifically, her lab is testing the feasibility of using immune privileged Sertoli cells for cell based gene therapy and examining the mechanism(s) of Sertoli cell immune protection in order to improve survival of insulin-expressing cells as a treatment for diabetes. She also has several collaborations with investigators at TTUHSC and TTU related to the role of bioactive compounds for the treatment of diabetes.

Her research has been funded by several national and local agencies including the NIH, American Diabetes Association, the Robert A. Welch Foundation, The Jasper L. and Jack Denton Wilson Foundation, and Ted Nash Long Life Foundation, and has been selected for the cover photo for Cell Transplantation (2008), Spermatogenesis (2012), DNA and Cell Biology (2018) and Biomedicines (2023) and highlighted in Biology of Reproduction (2014) and Nature Medicine (2018). She has been invited to give seminars at several universities as well as at national and international meetings, including the American Society for Reproductive Immunology (2022, 2024), American Society of Andrology (ASA; 2007, 2016, 2023), Society for the Study of Reproduction; 2012, 2016), NIAID (2017) and NIEHS (2017). She has received the TTUHSC President's Young Investigator Award (2011), the Outstanding Women Leader (OWL) Award from the West Texas Association for Women in Science (2013), the Harry M. Weitlauf Anatomy Teaching Award (2013), the Dean's Basic Science Teaching Award (2017, 2024), the President's Team Teaching Award (2019, 2020), and the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Dean’s Teaching Award (2023).