Parkinson & Other Movement Disorders Center's
Scientific Collaborators

James Brewer, M.D., Ph.D.

Chair and Professor of Neurosciences 

Dr. Brewer is the Principal Investigator for the UC San Diego Human Memory Laboratory. His research uses functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to study memory processes in volunteers with healthy memory and in patients with memory difficulties, such as in Alzheimer's disease (AD). This research focuses upon the medial temporal lobe (MTL), which shows selective damage early in the course of AD.

Harvey Checkoway, Ph.D., M.P.H.

Adjunct Professor of Neurosciences

Dr. Checkoway's main areas of research and teaching are occupational and environmental risk factors for chronic diseases. Recent examples of research projects for which he is principal investigator are studies of: environmental and genetic risk factors for Parkinson's disease; occupational exposures and risks for cancer and parkinsonism among Shanghai women textile workers; parkinsonism among welders.

Hector Gonzalez, Ph.D.

Professor of Neurosciences

Dr. Gonzalez served as Principle Investigator of the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (SOL), Neurocognitive Reading Center, which is the largest study of Latino neurocognitive health and aging to-date. Dr. González is PI of the Study of Latinos-Investigation of neurocognitive aging (SOL-INCA), which is a SOL ancillary study examining sociocultural, cardiometabolic and genomic risks of Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and ADRD among diverse Latinos.

Jose Soria Lopez, M.D.

Dr. Jose Soria completed his undergraduate studies in Biological Sciences at Florida International University in Miami, Florida and obtained his Medical Degree from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. He completed neurology residency training at UC San Diego and joined UC San Diego Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC) in 2018. He is currently furthering his training at the ADRC as a neurology fellow with a focus on neurodegenerative diseases. His research interests include evaluating clinical-neuropathological correlations of dementia and neuropathological makers of cognition.

Douglas Galasko, M.D.

Professor of Neurosciences
Program Director of Clinical Fellowship for Dementia
Director, Shiley-Marcos Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC)

Dr. Galasko is interested in clinical and basic research on Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other neurodegenerative disorders. In particular, he has focused on biological markers and genes related to AD, and understanding the clinical course and ways to intervene in AD. He has specifically done research on cerebrospinal fluid markers, subtypes of Alzheimer's Disease, and genetic risk factors of AD.

Sebastian Obrzut, M.D.

Associate Professor of Radiology

Dr. Sebastian Obrzut's research focuses on using radiological techniques to diagnose and treat various cardiac, pulmonary, and oncological diseases. He received his medical degree from Georgetown University.

Joseph Wang, DSc

SAIC Endowed Chair Distinguished Professor
Chair of the Department of Nanoengineering

Prof. Wang's research focuses on the field of nanobioelectronics and nanorobotics in the Laboratory for Nanobioelectronics. Prof. Wang's contributions have greatly enhanced the power and scope of applications of nanomachines and have had major impacts upon the fields of wearable sensors, the use of nanomaterials in bioanalysis, and upon the growing popularity of electroanalytical techniques.

Tzyy-Ping (TP) Jung, Ph.D.

Adjunct Professor of Bioengineering
Co-Director, Center for Advanced Neurological Engineering Institute for Neural Computation (INC) and Institute of Engineering in Medicine (IEM)
Associate Director, Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience and Institute for Neural Computation (INC)

Dr. Jung's long-range goal for research is to integrate methods in neural engineering and computation with basic scientific and clinical knowledge of the nervous system to improve diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of neurological diseases.

Harsimran S. Baweja, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Neuroscience
Director, Neuromechanics and Neuroplasticity Laboratory

Dr. Baweja is a clinical neuroscientist and aims at understanding the neural mechanisms underlying movement control and learning across the lifespan and in persons with movement disorders arising from nervous system pathologies. His research then use these discoveries to translate them into innovative and meaningful interventions and rehabilitation paradigms.

Phillip Weissbrod, M.D.

Associate Professor of Surgery
Director, Center For Voice and Swallowing

Dr. Weissbrod is attracted to Laryngology because it encompasses the most human of functions: breathing, talking, and swallowing. Eating and communicating are at the root of how we function on a societal and cultural level. Addressing these issues can lead to significant quality of life improvements, especially in patients who are professional voice users or who have complex disease processes such as head and neck cancer, stroke, or neurologic disease.

Don Cleveland, Ph.D.

Distinguished Professor of Neurosciences
Chair of Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine

Dr. Cleveland's laboratory has focused in two major directions. Molecular genetics and cell biology of mammalian chromosome movement and spindle assembly during mitosis: interests are in deciphering the mitotic checkpoint, major mechanism in mammals that insures delivery of every chromosome to each daughter cell during mitosis. Molecular genetics of axonal growth and motor neuron disease: Using transgenic and gene targeted mice, the principles that support axonal growth are being identified as are ways in which errors in the scaffolding structure within axons lead to disease.