1971: Ron Lukas
Ronald J. Lukas
2327 East Mountain View Road
Phoenix, Arizona 85028
rjelukas@home.com
<mailto:rjelukas@home.com>
Senior Staff Scientist, Division of Neurobiology
Director, Laboratory of Neurochemistry
Director, Clinical Assay Development Laboratory
Barrow Neurological Institute
350 West Thomas Road
Phoenix, Arizona 85013
PHONE - 602-406-3399
FAX - 602-406-4172
rlukas@chw.edu <mailto:rlukas@mha.chw.edu>
http://www.mha.chw.edu/BNI/pro/res/chem.html
<http://www.mha.chw.edu/BNI/pro/res/chem.html>
History:
SUNY Cortland, Cortland, NY, BS, Physics, 1971
Columbia University, New York, NY, predoctoral training, Physics, 1972
SUNY Health Sciences Center, Brooklyn, NY, Ph.D., Biophysics, 1976
U. California, Berkeley, CA, postdoctoral, Chemical Biodynamics, 1979
Stanford U. School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, postdoctoral, Neurobiology, 1980
Ron Lukas (Lukasiewicz until 1978) is a Senior Staff Scientist in the Division of Neurobiology at the Barrow Neurological Institute, Phoenix, Arizona, where he has been Director of the Laboratory of Neurochemistry since 1980, Director of the Clinical Assay Development Laboratory since 1985, and Vice-Chairman of the Division of Neurobiology from 1987-1994. His research focuses on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, which are involved in chemical signaling throughout the nervous system and are biological targets of tobacco nicotine. He also holds interests in growth factors, nervous system development, and diseases ranging from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's to epilepsy and myasthenia gravis. He has received research support from the National Institutes on Drug Abuse, on Aging, and on Neurological Diseases and Stroke, from the Arizona Disease Control Commission, from the Council for Tobacco Research and the Smokeless Tobacco Research Council, from the Parkinsons and Epilepsy Foundations, and from private donors.
Ron holds appointments in the Committee on Neuroscience and as a Research Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and the Pharmacology/Toxicology Training Program in the College of Medicine, all at the University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona. He also holds appointments in Molecular and Cellular Biology Program and the Biomedical Engineering Program and as an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona. He is Director of Cell Biology at Regenesis Biomedical, Inc. (Scottsdale, Arizona), which is a company developing novel means for multiple growth factory therapy in healing of cutaneous wounds.
Ron was initially trained as a physicist at the State University of New York College at Cortland (B.S., 1971) and at Columbia University in New York City. He then entered new fields, participating in a scientific expedition of San Diego, California's Scripps Institute of Oceanography Research Vessel, Alpha Helix in 1973, and obtaining his Ph.D. degree in Biophysics (1976) through the Department of Medicine at the State University of New York Health Sciences Center in Brooklyn. He pursued postdoctoral training in neurochemistry in the laboratories of Nobel laureate, Melvin Calvin, and Edward L. Bennett in the Laboratory of Chemical Biodynamics of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley (1976-1979). He also spent a year in neuroscience postdoctoral training in Eric Shooter's laboratory in the Department of Neurobiology at Stanford University School of Medicine.
Ron and Julie Southard Lukas (SUNY Cortland, BA, Sociology, 1973; California State University, San Francsico, CA, MS, Audiology, 1979; privately practicing audiologist and learning disabilities specialist) married in 1972. Their son, Eric, is 16 and a high school sophomore. Arizona is very conducive to an active lifestyle, and Phoenix is destined to become the fourth largest city in the US. This provides opportunities for life that is rich physically, intellectually, artistically, and personally.