Scott Baraban, PhD – University of California San Francisco
Scott C. Baraban, PhD is a Professor of Neurological Surgery and William K. Bowes Jr. Endowed Chair in Neuroscience Research at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Baraban’s lab studies the cellular and molecular basis of epilepsy, specifically catastrophic epilepsies of childhood. While some seizures can be controlled with available medications, a large number of pediatric epilepsy patients are medically intractable. Combining pharmacology, genetics, electrophysiology, cell transplantation, and unique zebrafish models of genetic epilepsies they are identifying new treatments for these patients. The first zebrafish models for epilepsy were developed in the Baraban lab over 15 years ago and recent drug screening efforts in a zebrafish model for DS have led to new therapeutic candidates. Publications from the Baraban laboratory (>100) 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 awards from the Esther and Joseph Klingenstein Fund, the Sandler Family Supporting Foundation, the UCSF Innovation in Basic Science Award, a EUREKA grant and Javits Neuroscience Award from the NIH. In 2016, he received the Basic Science Research Recognition Award from the American Epilepsy Society. He was co-Chair (with Jack Parent) of the 2014 Gordon Research Conference on epilepsy and Scientific Program Committee Chair for the 2015 AES meeting. He serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Dravet Syndrome Foundation, the Gruppo Famiglie Dravet association (Italy) and as a regular member of CNNT study section at NIH.