$2 million gift enables UF to establish epilepsy research center

Boosted by a $2 million private gift, the University of Florida announced the formation of the B.J. and Eve Wilder Center for Excellence in Epilepsy Research at a press conference on Tuesday (2/3) at UF’s McKnight Brain Institute.

The center will promote basic research on epilepsy, a condition of the central nervous system characterized by recurrent seizures. More than 2 million people in the United States have experienced an unprovoked seizure or have been diagnosed with epilepsy, according to the National Institutes of Health.

“I think the thing (that helped me early in my career) was that I had a year of research experience and I was not being called out to do the clinical responsibilities that of course we must do,” said Wilder, an emeritus professor of neurology and neuroscience at UF’s College of Medicine and a world leader in the development of new drugs to help epilepsy patients. “When I had the opportunity to do something with (Executive Director) Bill Luttge and the McKnight Brain Institute, I thought of an idea of maybe creating a center so that a young faculty member could really devote much of his time to doing research without being encumbered with the constant clinical responsibilities that we all have.”

The $2 million gift, which will be matched by the state, will help establish a term professorship along with two, one-year postdoctoral fellowships. The intent is to enable the candidate selected for the professorship to concentrate on basic research, free of many clinical responsibilities. The professorship will transfer to a new candidate in three or four years, refreshing the position and helping the research pursuits of another scientist.

“In accepting this gift, we recognize that we are also accepting the challenge that it catalyzes, namely, the establishment of UF’s campuswide center of excellence for research on the causes, consequences, prevention and improved treatment for epilepsy,” Luttge said. “All of us recognize this lofty goal will require considerable additional fiscal resources, so I call upon everyone to look upon the Wilders’ wonderful gift as a challenge — a matching goal to fill, not an end in itself, but rather just a beginning.”

The funds will establish a framework in which basic and clinical scientists can interact, leading to a better understanding of epilepsy in children and adults, as well as to the discovery and implementation of new treatments, according to Vice President for Health Affairs Dr. Douglas Barrett.

“(This is) a terrific recognition of how private support can have a profound impact on helping the University of Florida take specific action to help patients who suffer from a devastating neurologic disorder — the problem of epilepsy,” Barrett said.

Wilder’s early research interest was in the basic neurophysiology of epilepsy. Later, because of his commitment to work with epileptic patients, his interest turned to the pharmacology of antiepileptic drugs and to clinical studies to develop new drugs to combat epilepsy. Wilder was involved in the clinical development of all new drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat epileptic patients between 1975 and 1988. He has authored more than 300 publications, journals, books and monographs on epilepsy, pharmacology and physiology, and he continues to be active in clinical research and education.

Additional research centers currently under the auspices of UF’s McKnight Brain Institute include the Center for Traumatic Brain Injury Studies, the Center for Smell and Taste, the Movement Disorders Center and the Comprehensive Center for Pain Research. Each involves teams of scientists and clinicians who work together to make laboratory discoveries they can translate into therapies or technologies that help patients.