Nicolas G. Bazan
Professor and Director
Louisiana State University, School of Medicine
United States
Biography
Nicolas G. Bazan, M.D., Ph.D. is the Director of the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Neuroscience Center of Excellence (New Orleans), as well as Professor of Ophthalmology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Neurology. The Center bridges basic neurobiology with clinical neuroscience through multidisciplinary research in several areas including stroke, trauma, spinal cord injury, depression, epilepsy and neurodegenerative diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa, age-related macular degeneration and Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Bazan received his M.D. from the University of Tucuman (1965), Argentina, then was a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons and Harvard Medical School (1965-68). He has received numerous awards including corresponding membership in the Royal Academies of Sciences and Medicine (Spain) and the Jacob Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award from the National Institutes of Health in 1989.
Research Interest
His major interest is understanding the significance of signal transduction pathways that modulate gene expression in terms of survival/plasticity/death in neurons, as they occur in stroke, epilepsy and neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Bazan has international renown for his pioneering studies on the release of lipid messengers in brain ischemia, trauma, and seizures.