Joe Lutkenhaus is a professor at the University of Kansas Medical Center. He received a B.S. in organic chemistry from Iowa state University and then a PhD in biochemistry for the University of California, Los Angeles. Following his PhD, Lutkenhaus pursued his postdoctoral studies with William Donachie at the University of Edinburgh and then continued at the University of Connecticut Health Science center. In 2002, Lutkenhaus became a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.^[1]

Lutkenhaus discovered, among other things, that the FtsZ protein forms a ring around the division plane in bacteria and is thus a key factor in bacterial cell division.^[2]

• Member of the American Academy of Microbiology
• 2012 Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize
• 2014 Member of the National Academy of Sciences