EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE:
Monday, Dec. 9, 2019
2:00 p.m. EST
BALTIMORE - Karen S. Wilcox, Ph.D., presented the Lombroso Lecture on the subject of Glial
Cells and Epilepsy: How New Tools are Revealing New Insights at the annual meeting of the
American Epilepsy Society (AES), a medical and scientific society whose members are
dedicated to advancing research and education for preventing, treating and curing epilepsy.
The Lombroso Lecture is given each year by a clinician or scientist who is an outstanding
investigator in the field of epilepsy research. The Lombroso lecturer is selected by the AES
president, annual meeting chair and scientific program committee chair. This marks the 52nd
lecture in this series.
Dr. Wilcox is the Richard L. Stimson Presidential Professor and chair of the department of
pharmacology and toxicology, as well as director of the contract site of the internationally
recognized National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)-funded Epilepsy
Therapy Screening Program at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.
Dr. Wilcox received her Ph.D. in physiology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia
in 1993 and remained there as a research associate until 1998. Her areas of research interest
include basic mechanisms of pharmacoresistant epilepsy, the role of glial cells and
inflammation in seizure generation and epileptogenesis, the development of novel animal
models of epilepsy, and the mechanism of action of antiepileptic drugs. The main goal of her
research is to improve the lives of patients with epilepsy through the development of
innovative therapies.
Dr. Wilcox is a past member of the AES Board of Directors, has served on the Scientific
Advisory Board for Citizen’s United for Research in Epilepsy (CURE) and has served as an
Epilepsy Benchmarks Steward for the NINDS Office of Science Policy and Planning. She is a
member of several editorial review boards and has served as an ad-hoc reviewer for journals
in a number of areas, including pharmacology, neuroscience and epilepsy, and continues to be
an active member of AES, serving on numerous committees and task forces including currently
the Basic Science Task Force and the Gender Diversity Task Force.
Dr. Wilcox has completed terms as a regular member of two study sections at the National
Institutes of Health (NIH), continues to serve in an ad-hoc capacity as a reviewer for NINDS,
and reviews grants for a number of foundations. She recently received a NINDS Javits
Neuroscience Investigator Award to study the role of activated microglia in the development
of epilepsy following CNS infection.