Stem cell scientist named new director of UF's McKnight Brain Institute
A leading authority in adult stem cell research has been named the new director of the Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute of the University of Florida.
Dennis Steindler, 52, a professor of neuroscience and neurosurgery at the UF College of Medicine, will assume leadership of the McKnight Brain Institute on Dec. 1, UF officials said.
"I'm very pleased that Dennis has agreed to accept this post," said Dr. Douglas Barrett, senior vice president for health affairs at the UF Health Science Center. "He has a compelling and exciting vision that promises to move the McKnight Brain Institute further into world prominence."
Steindler's appointment comes after an 11-month search that involved about 30 applicants from the United States and around the world. Steindler becomes the McKnight Brain Institute's second permanent director, replacing neuroscientist William Luttge, who retired in February. Douglas Anderson, chairman of the department of neuroscience, served as director during the interim.
"This is a crucial position, which integrates the talents of more than 300 faculty members from 51 academic departments and 10 colleges to tackle all aspects of basic, clinical and translational neuroscience," Barrett said. "We were able to recruit from a pool of the most visionary and capable neuroscience leaders in the world. It was extremely gratifying that after such an extensive search, we found that Dr. Steindler was the clear leader."
Steindler joined the UF faculty in March 2001 as an established authority in adult stem cell research, a field that looks at ways to tap the potential of special cells to repair the body.
Before coming to UF, he was a professor in the neuroscience program at the University of Tennessee-Memphis.
Steindler and colleagues broke scientific ground when they showed that they could isolate living stem cells from adult cadaver brains, and they coined the term -brain marrow,- now commonly used in neuroscience circles to describe a substance in the brain that is rich in stem cells.
Steindler has a five-point development plan for the McKnight Brain Institute that focuses on age-related memory loss and cognition; nervous-system injuries such as trauma and stroke; chronic neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson&$39s disease and epilepsy; neural regeneration and rehabilitation; and neural behavioral science.
"Trauma, degenerative diseases, stroke and cancer are unfortunate but not uncommon in Florida and throughout the world," Steindler said. "But the McKnight Brain Institute can make a dent in these problems with its multidisciplinary approach that utilizes the incredible talents of the faculty at the University of Florida and the emerging technologies developed in the McKnight Brain Institute. Our goal is to become a world leader in neurodiagnostics and the development of novel neurotherapeutics."
He tells people whose lives are touched by neurological diseases to be hopeful.
"We are making progress in new genetic, molecular, cellular and rehabilitative therapies for neurological disease," Steindler said. "People need to embrace the new field of regenerative medicine and be optimistic, because treatments are in the pipeline."
Steindler will continue to play a role in the Program of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at the UF College of Medicine and the UF Shands Cancer Center.
A native of Wisconsin, Steindler earned a Ph.D. in neurobiology and anatomy from the University of California-San Francisco and a bachelor of arts degree in zoology from the University of Wisconsin.
The University of Florida Brain Institute began in the early 1990s as a campuswide initiative to harness UF's research, clinical-care and educational skills to confront brain disorders. It was named for Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight in 2000 to commemorate a $15 million gift from the McKnight Brain Research Foundation to support research to find ways to alleviate memory loss associated with aging in people.