Career Development Symposium - American Neurological Association

Speaker/Mentor Biographies
and has served on advisory boards for trials of nonsense suppression and exon skipping in the
dystrophinopathies.
Dr. Flanigan has received numerous awards, including the Golden Anniversary Prize for
Distinguished Clinical Investigation from the University of Utah School of Medicine Alumni
Association. Dr. Flanigan is currently an editor for PLoS Currents: Muscular Dystrophy and serves
on the editorial boards for the Journal of Clinical Neuromuscular Disease and Neuromuscular
Disorders. He has spoken extensively about neuromuscular diseases at national and
international society meetings. He is the author of more than 50 peer-reviewed journal articles
and of 3 book chapters regarding neuromuscular diseases.
Francisco Gonzalez-Scarano, MD
University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio/San Antonio, TX
Francisco González-Scarano, MD trained at Yale (BA 1971) and Northwestern
(MD 1975). He received his medical training as an intern in Medicine and
resident in Neurology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, and
was then a post-doctoral fellow with Dr. Neal Nathanson in the Department of
Microbiology at Penn between 1979-1981, following which he spent a year as a
visiting worker at the National Institute for Medical Research in London. He
returned to Penn in 1982 as an assistant professor of Neurology, rose to
Professor of Neurology as well as professor in the Department of Microbiology and chaired the
Department of Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1999-2010. He held many
leadership positions at Penn, including co-Director of the Penn Center for AIDS Research (CFAR),
a member of the Executive Committee in the Clinical Practices of the University of Pennsylvania
(CPUP), and co-Director of the University of Pennsylvania Comprehensive Neuroscience Center.
Dr. González-Scarano became the Dean of the School of Medicine and Vice-President for
Medical Affairs at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio in August, 2010.
Dr. González-Scarano is an expert in HIV neuropathogenesis as well as in other aspects of
neurovirology and brain inflammation. He has been the principal investigator of many NIH
grants, including a program project centering on the biology of HIV infection of the brain, and of
training grants in neurovirology and in the scientific development of students from
underrepresented minorities. He also held many roles in national organizations, is the author of
many publications in neurovirology, AIDS, and Multiple Sclerosis, and is co-editor of two books.
Between 1993 and 1997 he was the Chairman of the Board of Scientific Councilors of the NINDS;
before and since he has served on several NIH and Multiple Sclerosis Society study sections. He
was on the Council of the American Neurological Association in 2001-2003, chaired its Scientific
Program Committee, and was its first vice-President 2008-2010. He was previously a member of
the American Academy of Neurology’s Scientific Program Committee. He was a member of the
National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke Council (2004-2008), and is a member of
the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies (2006-). In addition to his clinical work in
Multiple Sclerosis and his laboratory activities, he has been on the Editorial Boards of the
Journal of Virology, Virology, Virus Research, the Journal of Neurovirology, and Glia, and he edits
a section of the electronic textbook Up-to-Date.
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