Keynote Speaker
 |
 |
Douglas C. Wallace, Ph.D.
Donald Bren Professor of Molecular Medicine
Professor of Biological Chemistry and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Director of the Center for Molecular and Mitochondrial Medicine and Genetics
Dr. Douglas C. Wallace is the Donald Bren
Professor of Molecular Medicine and serves as the Director of the Center for Molecular and
Mitochondrial Medicine and Genetics at UCI. He is also a Council Member of the Human
Genome Organization and is a Senior Editor of Mitochondrial Database-mitomap.org. Dr.
Wallace graduated from Yale University Medical School with a Ph.D. in Microbiology and
Human Genetics. During his graduate studies, he founded the field of human mitochondrial
genetics.
Dr. Wallace is one of the nation’s leading genetics researchers, helping to
discover how defects in inherited genes contribute to neurodegenerative diseases such as
Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Through his research, Wallace has shown that
defects in mitochondrial genes are major contributors to degenerative diseases, cancer and
aging. He has published over 260 articles in journals such as Scientific American,
Science, Nature Genetics, and The American Journal of Human Genetics. Dr. Wallace is an
elected member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1995, and has received many
academic honors including the Passano Award 2000 for Mitochondrial Genetics and the
William Allan Award from the American Society of Human Genetics. Four years ago he
received an honorary doctorate degree from a French university, Victor Segalen Bordeaux
II.
After graduate school, Dr. Wallace was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of
Genetics at Stanford University Medical School. His application of techniques of molecular
genetics to his studies permitted him to demonstrate the maternal inheritance of
mitochondrial DNA, initiate the search for mtDNA disease mutations, and begin
characterizing population-specific mtDNA sequence polymorphisms.
Later he served at Emory University Medical School where he created the Center for
Molecular Medicine. Dr. Wallace’s work at the Center permitted the integration of his
clinical, diagnostic, and basic research programs on mitochondrial genetics and related
neuromuscular diseases. While at Emory he was the R.W. Woodruff Professor of Molecular
Genetics, and also was the Department of Genetics and Molecular Medicine Chair for four
years.
Dr. Wallace is certified with the American Board of Medical Genetics in Clinical Genetics,
Clinical Biochemical Genetics, and Molecular Genetics.