The role of vasoactive intestinal peptide in neuroprotection: interview with Professor Illana Gozes

Abstract

Professor Illana Gozes was interviewed by Emma Quigley (Senior Editor, Expert Opinion) on 17(th) April 2007. Professor Illana Gozes BSc, PhD holds the titles of Professor of Clinical Biochemistry; The Lily and Avraham Gildor Chair for the Investigation of Growth Factors; Director of Adams Super Center for Brain Studies and Levi-Edersheim-Gitter fMRI Institute; Head of the Dr Diana and Zelman Elton (Elbaum) Laboratory for Molecular Neuroendocrinology, Tel Aviv University and Chief Scientific Officer, Allon Therapeutics, Inc., Vancouver BC, Canada. Professor Gozes has served as a member (or chair) of several faculty, university or national and international committees and she currently serves on the Board of Directors of Allon Therapeutics, the Scientific Review Board of the ISOA, and is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Molecular Neuroscience. Professor Gozes has received a number of scientific awards for her work including the Landau Award for an excellent PhD dissertation, the Juludan Prize and the Teva Founders Prize for exceptional scientific studies that may lead to biotechnology developments as well as the Bergmann Prize and the Neufeld award for outstanding/leading US-Israel BSF grant proposals, and has published extensively in the fields of molecular neuroscience and neuroprotection (> 200 scientific manuscripts). She is co-inventor of > 15 patents and applications, including the composition of matter patent on AL-108 and AL-208, Allon's lead compounds. Professor Gozes received a BSc from Tel Aviv University, a PhD from The Weizmann Institute of Science and was a Weizmann Postdoctoral Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Research Associate/Visiting Scientist at the Salk Institute and the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation, a Senior Scientist/Associate Professor at the Weizmann Institute and a Fogarty-Scholar-in-Residence at the National Institutes of Health (USA). Professor Gozes directs a very active research laboratory at Tel Aviv University and is mentoring and has mentored directly approximately 50 graduate students toward their MSc or PhD degrees.