Director’s message

For over 40 years, UCI has played a pioneering role in epilepsy research. The UCI Epilepsy Research Center (EpiCenter) was founded in 2002, with Dr. Tallie Z. Baram as the Founding Director, and it has transformed UCI into an internationally recognized leader in epilepsy research and training. Founded on the principle that epilepsy serves as “a window into brain plasticity”, our members have made groundbreaking discoveries that have changed the way we think about epilepsy and many other brain conditions.

We now have a robust research community with many resources available through the EpiCenter, which supports a wealth of emerging tools and technologies, a biobank for childhood genetic disorders, a seminar series and conferences attracting prominent neuroscientists from around the world, the only NIH-funded T32 training program in epilepsy research, a graduate level course and other professional development activities. The Department of Anatomy & Neurobiology has acted as the virtual home for the EpiCenter, but our nearly 40 investigators are represented in more than 15 departments at five California institutions.

As we look to the future, we are setting our sights on an ambitious new vision to become the first epilepsy research center in the world that successfully bridges cutting-edge neuroscience research with state-of-the-art medicine. Our goal is to move beyond transformative basic science discoveries in the laboratory and bring them into the clinic, so we can help as many people as possible.

Whether you are a scientist, student or a member of the global epilepsy community, we hope you find our website useful, and we invite you to join us as we make progress toward a cure.

Sincerely,

Robert F Hunt, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Anatomy & Neurobiology