University of California, San Diego - Health Sciences

The Larry L. Hillblom Chair in Geriatric Medicine
Laura L. Dugan, M.D.

Geriatrics specialist, Laura L. Dugan, M.D., joined the UCSD School of Medicine faculty February 1, 2005, as the first physician-scientist to hold the Larry L. Hillblom Chair in Geriatric Medicine. She holds joint appointments in UCSD's Departments of Medicine and Neurosciences.

In addition to promoting healthy aging in a special diagnostic and treatment clinic for older patients, Dugan will continue her research into the molecular mechanics of aging. She is attempting to define the role of free radical oxidative injury in stroke or trauma, as well in chronic neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). A second area of research focuses on development and characterization of a class of potent anti-oxidant compounds known as buckyballs, as potential therapy for age-related diseases.

Dugan joins UCSD from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where she was an Associate Professor of Neurology, Medicine/Geriatrics, and Anatomy and Neurobiology. Her educational background includes a bachelor's degree in life sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a medical degree from Ohio State University School of Medicine, and residency training at Children's Hospital of San Francisco, a UC San Francisco affiliate. She completed a fellowship in geriatric medicine at Stanford University, where she also conducted research on aging.

Among the journals in which she has extensively published are the Journal of Neurosciences, Nature Medicine, the Journal of Biological Chemistry, and Cellular and Molecular Biology. She has presented her work widely and is the recipient of several awards, including the Hartford Award for Research in Geriatric Medicine, a Paul Beeson Physician-Scholar Award.