UC-IRVINE: Brain Research Takes Center Stage

      "A $1 million gift from a Laguna Beach couple will be used to draw an eminent physician to lead clinical research efforts at the UC Irvine Institute of Brain Aging and Dementia," the Los Angeles Times reports. The gift will provide $100,000 in research funding for 10 years, which will enable the university to "attract a world-class senior researcher in dementia and Alzheimer's disease." UCI Chancellor Laurel Wilkening said the "gift will enable UCI's Institute of Brain Aging and Dementia to make significant strides in research that is becoming increasingly important as our population ages. Bringing another leading neuroscientist to UCI will help an already nationally recognized research program make additional discoveries that will be of enormous benefit to society" (Addison, 1/23).

In Neurosurgery ...
      In related news, UCI has recruited a "world-renowned brain surgeon" to chair its medical school's "struggling neurosurgery department," which has gone almost two years without a leader, the Los Angeles Times reports. Dr. Keith Black, named last year as one of Time magazine's "Heroes of Medicine" and "profiled in a 1996 PBS Series called 'The New Explorer,'" has been credited with saving or extending the lives of many brain cancer patients who could not be treated by other doctors." His recruitment "is a boost for UCI," whose "neurosurgery program was put on probation last year by the national agency that awards accreditation to medical schools," the Times reports (Dodson, 1/22).