Judith Bailey Gabor with a portrait of her husband, the late UC Davis neurology professor and former department chair Andrew John Gabor, M.D., Ph.D. A gift from Judith, family and friends established the UC Davis School of Medicine’s first presidential chair in Dr. Gabor’s name.

The Andrew John Gabor Presidential Chair in Neurology

UC Davis has received a generous gift that establishes the Andrew John Gabor Presidential Chair in Neurology – the first presidential chair in the UC Davis School of Medicine and one of three established to date at UC Davis.

Honoring the late professor Andrew John Gabor, M.D., Ph.D., the gift was made by his widow, Judith Bailey Gabor, along with family and friends.

Giving back to UC Davis had long been part of the Gabors’ plans, Judith said in a recent interview.

“It fell to us to fulfill our dreams of long ago,” she said. “Our parents and their parents contributed in several ways to many community projects and causes. We hope our children will continue these traditions.”

The Gabors met in the late 1950s while both were in graduate school at Duke University. They came to UC Davis in 1969, with a young family in tow, to join the faculty of the new UC Davis School of Medicine. As a professor, Andrew Gabor was an integral part of the UC Davis Department of Neurology. He served as chair of the department from 1981 to 1991, as director of the electroencephalography laboratory from 1969 until his retirement, and was regarded as a national leader in epilepsy research.

Professor Gabor was highly respected for creating artificial neural networking systems to analyze electroencephalograms (EEGs) for seizure detection and for sleep studies. He established the Department of Neurology’s translational epilepsy research program.

“UC Davis Health has been a most important part of our lives for nearly 50 years; we are happy to contribute to its research programs,” shared Judith. “We hope that this gift inspires others to make contributions too. Through this gift, our family is honoring Andy’s memory and his career at UC Davis Health and the School of Medicine.

“One goal would be to make enough progress in understanding and treating seizure disorders such that its importance would be recognized nationwide,” she added. “National recognition should be a vehicle for disseminating more information on the patient-family level and perhaps to gain greater funding.”

UC Davis’ epilepsy program has made significant progress in defining cellular targets and more effective therapies to reduce, or perhaps eliminate, seizures, said Julie Freischlag, M.D., the vice chancellor for Human Health Sciences and dean of the School of Medicine at UC Davis at the time of the gift.

“This funding helps us expand that great work, which is wonderful news for our neurology research team and the more than 4 million people in the U.S. with seizure disorders that often do not respond to current treatment options,” Freischlag said.

The support will be channeled toward the continued development of leading-edge treatments for epilepsy and other seizure disorders. The gift positions the Department of Neurology to further leverage already robust neuroscience research at UC Davis, to advance fields ranging from neuroimmunology to neuro-genetics, and to forge new and significant breakthroughs in the underlying neurobiology of epilepsies.

“We are very grateful for the generous gift from the family of our friend and colleague Professor Gabor,” said Department of Neurology Chair Fredric Gorin, M.D., Ph.D. “It will allow us to build upon the strong foundation that began with his commitment to academic medicine and scientific discovery more than half a century ago.”

The prestigious University of California presidential chair includes a contribution from UC Office of the President via the UC Presidential Endowment Fund. Through this matching fund program, the university is working to fund 25 new endowed chair positions at UC Davis by 2020.