Dr. Tallie Z. Baram wins nation's top epilepsy rese...( Dr. Tallie Z. Baram whose groundbreaki...),Health

Baram will receive the Epilepsy Research Recognition Award from the American Epilepsy Society at its national meeting today in Washington, D.C. She is the first woman and the first UC Irvine researcher to achieve this honor.

Baram, the Danette Shepard Chair in Neurological Sciences in the UCI School of Medicine, is founder and executive committee chair of UCI's Epilepsy Research Center. As a researcher, she is considered the world's leading investigator of the basic neural mechanisms involved in childhood febrile seizures -- seizures caused by high fever -- and how prolonged febrile seizures might lead to the onset of adult epilepsy.

"Dr. Baram's work has a broad and long-term impact on both epilepsy research and the care of children who suffer from seizures," said Dr. Thomas C. Cesario, dean of the School of Medicine. "She truly is a trailblazer in her field and a valued leader at UCI and in the epilepsy research community."

Baram's work defined the molecular changes within brain cells that are caused by early life febrile seizures. She has studied how fever interacts with the brain to generate seizures, and how brain imaging can define individuals who are at risk for epilepsy after prolonged febrile seizures.

Her research also has helped establish an understanding of the neurobiology behind infantile spasms, a devastating form of epilepsy in infants. She was the first scientist to create a research concept for this disorder that is consistent with and explains the unusual responses of this form of epilepsy to stress hormones. Baram's research on this topic identifies targets for the design of new and more effective drugs that may help calm these childhood seizures without the side effects of drugs designed for adult
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Contact: Tom Vasich
tmvasich@uci.edu
949-824-6455
University of California - Irvine
5-Dec-2005