On Thursday, February 15, 2018, UCLA friends, donors, faculty members and staff gathered together in the Dr. S. Jerome and Judith D. Tamkin Auditorium at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center to celebrate the appointment of Dr. Linda M. Liau (RES ’97, FEL ’98, PhD ’99, MBA) as chair of the Department of Neurosurgery, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Top: Dr. Linda Liau. Second: (From left) Dr. Christopher C. Giza (RES ’94, FEL ’96, ’00), director of the UCLA Steve Tisch BrainSPORT Program; longtime UCLA supporter Phyllis Easton; and Dr. John Mazziotta. Third: (From left) UCLA Neurosurgery Board members Jack and Maggy Simon, Sylvia Cheatham and Dr. Mel Cheatham. Fourth: UCLA donors Elka Weiner (left) and Shirley Familian. Bottom: (From left) UCLA donor Gregory Mueller and UCLA Neurosurgery Board members Loic Bailly and Ted Gagliano. Photos: Reed Hutchinson
A welcome was provided by Dr. John C. Mazziotta (RES ’81, FEL ’83), vice chancellor of UCLA Health Sciences and CEO of UCLA Health. Featured speakers included Dr. Kelsey C. Martin, dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and Gerald S. Levey, M.D., Endowed Chair, and Dr. Liau. A question-and-answer period followed the presentations.
“The UCLA Department of Neurosurgery has established world-class clinical programs covering every area of neurosurgery, from brain tumors, epilepsy and movement disorders to spine diseases, brain trauma, neurocritical care and pediatric neurosurgery,” Dr. Mazziotta said. “In the research labs, our investigators work tirelessly to understand diseases of the brain and accelerate new treatments for patients. In fact, Linda developed one of the first human applications of a personalized brain tumor vaccine, DCVax-L, which is currently being tested in multicenter clinical trials in the United States and Europe. I am certain that now, as the new chair of the department, Linda will lead the department forward as our neurosurgery faculty members continue achieving medical and scientific discoveries.”
Dr. Liau received her MD from Stanford University in 1991, and, after completing her residency and fellowship training in neurosurgery at UCLA, she joined the faculty at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. In 1999, she received her PhD in neuroscience from UCLA, and her MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management in 2016. Board-certified in neurosurgery, Dr. Liau is a tenured professor of neurosurgery and has both an active research laboratory and a busy clinical practice in the field of brain tumors and neurosurgical oncology. Dr. Liau also serves as co-director of the UCLA Brain Tumor Center and as the principal investigator and director of the National Cancer Institute-designated UCLA Brain Cancer SPORE (Specialized Program of Research Excellence) P50 grant. Over the past 20 years, Dr. Liau has been the principal investigator on several National Institutes of Health research grants. Clinically, she developed novel ways to map brain function during awake brain tumor surgeries and is an internationally recognized expert in intraoperative brain mapping for brain tumors.
“It is an honor to chair this prestigious department,” Dr. Liau said. “I have a huge drive to prove that things that seem impossible can actually work. When I first started working on brain tumor immunotherapy, everyone told me that you can’t mount an immune response in the brain. Now we know that’s not true. I’m looking forward to the work we can do in this department that will push even more boundaries.”
For more information, contact Karen Colimore at: 310-267-0496
