Luis F. Parada, Ph.D.
Scientific Advisor
Professor and Chairman, Department of Developmental Biology
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas
Luis F. Parada’s research integrates the fields of molecular genetics, embryonic development and signal transduction. His studies have provided critical insights into brain development and cancer biology. His laboratory uses mouse models to study neural development and human diseases such as Neurofibromatosis and cancers of the nervous system.
Dr. Parada’s work on cancer biology has, unexpectedly, led him to the study of autism spectrum disorders. He focuses on a gene called Pten, which is known to suppress cancers and is mutated in a subset of autism cases. By deleting Pten in certain parts of the mouse brain, Dr. Parada was able to recreate deficits in social interaction and brain abnormalities that are reminiscent of autism.
Dr. Parada obtained a B.S. from the University of Wisconsin and a Ph.D. in Biology from MIT in 1985, identifying oncogenes in human cancer. He was a Damon Runyon and later Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellow at the Pasteur Institute. He was head of the Molecular Embryology Section in the Mammalian Genetics Laboratory of the National Cancer Institute before joining UT Southwestern in 1994.
Dr. Parada has served on the National Advisory Council of the National Institutes for Neurological Disorders & Strokes, the Pew Scholars Foundation Advisory Board and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Scientific Review Board. He has received numerous honors, including membership in the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Dana Alliance, and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Dr. Parada currently holds the Diana K. and Richard C. Strauss Distinguished Chair in Developmental Biology and the Southwestern Ball Distinguished Chair in Nerve Regeneration Research. He also is director of the Kent Waldrep Center for Basic Research on Nerve Growth and Regeneration.
