2018 Audrey Gilden Lectureship Robert Fujinami Professor of Pathology University of Utah

Dr. Robert S. Fujinami received his B.A. (honors) from the University of Utah and his Ph.D. from Northwestern University in Chicago. After completing a post-doctoral fellowship under Michael Oldstone at Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation in La Jolla, California, he became a Research Associate at Scripps and a Research Immunopathologist at the University of California, San Diego. After an Assistant Professorship at Scripps and an Associate Professorship at UCSD, he was appointed as Professor at the University of Utah in 1990, where he has remained in the Departments of Pathology and Neurology. He is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs for the University of Utah School of Medicine and Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs for University of Utah Health. Dr. Fujinami is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was the inaugural recipient of the Harry M. Weaver Neuroscience Scholar Award from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. From 1989-1996, he was awarded the Javits Neuroscience Scholar Award from the NIH. Dr. Fujinami has published over 225 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Fujinami’s lab has developed a new “hit and run” model to study virus-induced epilepsy where a virus infection alters central nervous system connectivity, is cleared by the immune response, and epilepsy occurs after the virus is gone. This has opened up how we think about epilepsy and this is what he will be sharing with during his Lectureship talk.