Edwin Lennette was a doctor and virologist known for his role in founding the field of diagnostic virology. Lennette was raised in Pittsburg, the grandchild of European immigrants and son of paralegals. He attended the University of Chicago and earned a bachelor’s, PhD, and medical degree over his nine years there (1927–1936). Following two years teaching at Washington University school of Medicine, he joined the International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation (1939–1946), and later the Rockefeller Foundation Laboratories at the California Department of Public Health (1944–1946). When the laboratories became the Viral and Rickettsial Disease Laboratory of the California Department of Public Health, Lennette served as its director from 1947 until his retirement in 1978. In this interview, Lennette discusses all this as well as his professional associations; public health research findings; laboratory relations with state and federal governments; and Q fever, polio, atypical pneumonia, yellow fever, influenza, viral cancer, rubella, and encephalitis research.