Dr. George Bartzokis (RES ’87, FEL ’92), professor of psychiatry, who originated the theory that the degeneration of the brain’s myelin contributed to many developmental and degenerative diseases such as schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s, died August 22, 2014. He was 58 years old. Dr. Bartzokis was an early investigator into the damaging effects of iron in the brain. He invented and patented a method for measuring brain-iron levels in vivo using magnetic resonance imaging. Dr. Bartzokis also conceived a novel developmental model for neuropsychiatric diseases based on the brain’s high myelin content.
Dr. Saleh Salehmoghaddam (FEL ’84), who joined UCLA’s clinical voluntary faculty in 1984, served as co-director of UCLA’s Renal Transplant Service in the 1980s and was a consulting nephrologist to the transplant and other services at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, died September 11, 2014. He was 66 years old. In 2009, the Serge and Yvette Dadone Clinical Teaching Award in Honor of Saleh Salehmoghaddam, MD, was established, and he received several Department of Medicine Housestaff Teaching awards.
Dr. Bramah N. Singh, a renowned UCLA cardiologist who pioneered a novel classification system used by researchers and clinicians worldwide to study and develop anti-arrhythmic medications, died September 20, 2014. He was 76 years old. Dr. Singh joined UCLA in 1976 as associate professor of medicine and served as chief of cardiology from 1988 to 1996 and staff physician and cardiac researcher at the VA Hospital in West Los Angeles until his retirement in 2009.
