Scott Baraban, PhD

Co-Chair, University of California, San Francisco

Scott C. Baraban, Ph.D. is a Professor of Neurological Surgery and William K. Bowes Jr. Endowed Chair in Neuroscience Research at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).  He obtained his Bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins University (1983-87) and a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Virginia (1990-94).  He trained as a postdoctoral fellow (1994-1997) with Phil Schwartzkroin at the University of Washington.  A faculty member at UCSF since 1999, he directs the Epilepsy Research Laboratory in the Department of Neurological Surgery; a research program continuously funded by NIH for over 20 years. 

Dr. Baraban’s translational neuroscience lab studies the cellular and molecular basis of epilepsy, with a specific focus on catastrophic epilepsies of childhood.  His laboratory was the first group to use zebrafish models of acute seizures and epilepsy starting in 2005 and has published several seminal manuscripts describing (i) methods to evaluate seizure activity in larval zebrafish, (ii) the first zebrafish models for genetic epilepsies, and (iii) high-throughput drug screening using zebrafish models of epilepsy.  Combining state-of-the-art pharmacology, genetics, electrophysiology, cell transplantation, imaging, and unique zebrafish models of genetic epilepsies they are identifying new treatments for these patients. 

Publications (>100) from the Baraban laboratory have appeared in Science, Nature Neuroscience, Nature Communications, Journal of Neuroscience, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Neuron. Dr. Baraban is the recipient of numerous awards including Esther and Joseph Klingenstein Fund Neuroscience Fellowship, a EUREKA grant from the NIH, and a NINDS Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award.  In 2016, he received the Basic Science Research Recognition Award from the American Epilepsy Society. 

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