Dr. Christine Lekutis is a Senior Patent Agent in the San Francisco office of Morrison & Foerster LLP. Dr. Lekutis has been registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office since 2002. Her practice focuses on the preparation and prosecution of patent applications, and portfolio management. In addition, she has considerable experience in coordinating prosecution in other jurisdictions with foreign patent counsel. Dr. Lekutis also provides assistance on due diligence inquiries, and patent litigation support. She has worked with universities, as well as biotech start-ups and large pharmaceutical companies.

Dr. Lekutis has expertise in cellular and molecular biology, and has a long term interest in vaccines and immunology-based diagnostics and therapeutics. Her work in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University was awarded Individual NIH and Bank of America / Giannini Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowships. Her research in the laboratory of Dr. John Boothroyd involved the analysis of surface antigen expression and host cell entry by the obligate intracellular parasite Toxoplasma gondii. Dr. Lekutis received her Ph.D. in immunology from Harvard University. Her doctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Norman Letvin involved the characterization of the CD4+ helper T cell response to HIV envelope in DNA-vaccinated and SHIV-infected monkeys. Prior to graduate school, she was a research associate in the laboratory of Dr. Gordon Parry at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She received her B.S. in physiology and zoology from Michigan State University.