Albert La Spada, MD, PhD, appointed the Jack W. Peltason Endowed Chair

Albert La Spada, MD, PhD, distinguished professor in the Departments of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine and Neurology at the UCI School of Medicine, associate dean of research development and director of the UCI Center for Neurotherapeutics, has been appointed the Jack W. Peltason Endowed Chair, effective April 1, 2023 through June 30, 2028.

The Jack W. Peltason Endowed Chair was established in 2007 in honor of Jack W. Peltason, a founding faculty member, former UCI chancellor and a former president of the University of California. This endowed chair reflects his contributions as a distinguished scholar of political science and national leader in higher education.

To be eligible for appointment to the Peltason chair, a professor must have demonstrated a commitment to work collaboratively and creatively with other academic disciplines, and be engaged in full time research and teaching activities on the UCI campus.

Dr. La Spada is a world-renowned expert in the field of neurodegenerative diseases. He created a new field within this paradigm of genetic disorders when, as a graduate student, he discovered the first example of an expanded nucleotide sequence repeat underlying an inherited disorder - X-linked spinal & bulbar muscular atrophy.

When Dr. La Spada began his own independent research program in 1998, he continued in this new field and expanded his program to also study spinocerebellar ataxia type 7 and Huntington’s disease, and more recently amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. La Spada is a highly collaborative scientist, which is very much the essence of the Jack W. Peltason Endowed Chair. He is a specialist in neurology, clinical genetics, clinical molecular genetics and clinical pathology. Despite having been recruited to UCI less than three years ago, Dr. La Spada has attracted a wide range of collaborators at UCI, and it is easy to see why.

His scientific excellence and ability to attract funding and publish at the highest level are coupled with a wonderful sense of humor, insatiable work ethic and strong commitment to cooperative endeavors – making him the perfect collaborator. He is also an effective associate dean for Research Development, a position he stepped into in 2021 after a comprehensive search within the School of Medicine.

In his field, Dr. La Spada’s research program is among the best in the world. He brings not only his highly collaborative approach and global reputation to UCI, but also an impressive amount of research funding. Dr. La Spada currently holds a remarkable 15 grants as PI, most of which are from the NIH, amounting to approximately $27M in total support. He also received a National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) Research Program Award in 2021 that provides $9.3M to fund his lab until 2029.

In addition to his research abilities, Dr. La Spada takes teaching, service and inclusive excellence very seriously. Since arriving at UCI in 2020, he has already added three formal courses to his teaching portfolio and has concrete plans to teach in three more. In addition to mentoring many students at various levels in his laboratory, he has trained 20 postdoctoral fellows. Many of his trainees have been awarded prestigious fellowships and travel awards, and 10 now hold tenured or tenure-track faculty positions.

Dr. La Spada received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and completed a residency in anatomic & clinical pathology at the University of Washington, where he also completed fellowships in both clinical genetics and neurogenetics.