Biography:
Berislav V. Zlokovic is the director of the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute and professor and chair of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the Keck School of Medicine, and a professor of biological sciences at the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. He is recognized internationally as a leader in the fields of Alzheimer’s disease and stroke. Zlokovic has a long-standing career in studying the role of cerebral blood vessels in the pathogenesis of neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and stroke as a foundation for the development of new treatments for these disorders. Using animal models and studying human brain, his laboratory has shown that damage to the BBB and brain microcirculation can accumulate before neuronal dysfunction, injury and cognitive decline. His research team has identified the cellular and molecular mechanisms in small cerebral blood vessels causing disruption of the neurovascular unit and BBB breakdown, which leads to neuronal dysfunction and neurodegeneration in models of AD, ALS, pericyte-deficient rodents and stroke. Discoveries of his research team have contributed to the development of clinical trials based on amyloid-beta clearance in AD, and a new therapeutic approach for stroke based on activated protein C mutant that is currently under clinical assessment in phase 2 studies in stroke patients as a neuroprotective agent. Currently, Zlokovic studies how genes that influence AD risk (e.g., APOE4, PSEN1, PICALM, CLU) affect cerebrovascular system using transgenic models, human pluripotent stem cell technology and novel neuroimaging methods and molecular biomarkers in the living human brain to evaluate BBB function and cerebral blood flow changes in relation to brain connectivity and cognitive decline.
