Dr. Florin Despa, Ph.D.

Professor, Principal Investigator

Dr. Florin Despa is a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Nutritional Sciences and holds a joint appointment within the Department of Neurology. The Despa laboratory is funded by the National Institutes of Health to study the role of amyloid-forming pancreatic amylin in the development of brain microvascular and Alzheimer’s pathologies. Prior to his arrival at The University of Kentucky in 2013, Dr. Despa was an Assistant Professor in The Department of Pharmacology at The University of California, Davis (UC Davis), between 2008 and 2013. He trained in protein aggregation-related cell injury mechanisms at The University of Chicago, Department of Chemistry, as a postdoctoral fellow (2000-2004), and as a Research Assistant Professor (2004-2008) at the University of Chicago, Surgery Department. Between 1998 and 2000, Dr. Despa was a postdoctoral fellow of The Research Board of the K.U. Leuven (Belgium). Dr. Despa graduated from The Institute of Physics, Magurele-Bucharest (Romania) in 1997 with a thesis on off-center diffusion mechanisms.