Lipkin is the first professor to hold the chair, which was established in 1996 by Louise Turner Arnold, a Laguna Beach real estate executive active in business, civic, educational and medical organizations in Orange County. The chair was established to assist medical research projects and provide assistance for young scientists exploring how diseases affect the nervous system, especially as people age.

"I'm grateful to Louise Arnold for her generosity in establishing this chair, which will allow further study of how molecular changes in the brain make elderly individuals more vulnerable to certain diseases of the nervous system," said Lipkin. "More chronic disorders affect the elderly than young people, and we are finding evidence that infectious agents like viruses may play a role in the development of these chronic diseases. We hope eventually to be able to develop new therapies to combat these disorders and further understand how the nervous system functions in health and in illness."

Lipkin's work focuses on chronic nervous system disorders and their possible links to infectious agents like viruses or bacteria. He was the first to identify a new infectious disease agent using only laboratory molecular methods. This agent, the Borna disease virus, has been implicated in several human neurological and psychiatric disorders and provides researchers with the first model to study viral interactions with the immune system in autism and schizophrenia. Lipkin also is known for uncovering the West Nile virus as the cause of the encephalitis outbreak that began in New York in 1999; his discovery marked the first time the virus had been found in this country.

"I'm delighted that Lipkin's expertise has been recognized with the Arnold chair," said Dr. Thomas C. Cesario, dean of the College of Medicine. "Lipkin's research is first-class, and this chair should allow him to continue his inquiries into the possible causes of and treatments for long-term diseases of the nervous system."

Lipkin has served on the UCI faculty since 1990 and currently holds positions in the departments of neurology, anatomy and neurobiology, and microbiology and molecular genetics. Previously, he was a research associate and postdoctoral fellow at the Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, Calif. Lipkin received his undergraduate degree from Sarah Lawrence College (and was one of the first men to attend all four years of college there) and his M.D. degree from Rush Medical College, Chicago. His medical education included a clerkship at the Institute of Neurology in London. He served his residency in internal medicine at the University of Washington, Seattle, and in neurology at the University of California, San Francisco; he is board-certified in both fields. Lipkin also was the first Pew Scholar at UCI, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, which provide research support to about 20 young biomedical researchers every year.

 
Contact
Andrew Porterfield
(949) 824-3969
amporter@uci.edu

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