Patrick Lyden, world-renowned stroke expert, to join Zilkha faculty

Patrick D. Lyden, MD, will join the faculty of the Keck School of Medicine of USC as a professor of physiology and neuroscience and of neurology, as well as a Zilkha Scholar within the USC Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute, in September 2020.

He currently serves as Carmen and Louis Warschaw Chair in Neurology and professor of neurology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

A recognized global leader in stroke therapy, Dr. Lyden led a landmark 1995 clinical study that resulted in approval of the first treatment for stroke, which involves the intravenous delivery of an engineered protein that breaks down blood clots. His research bridges the lab and the clinic, with a focus on translating discoveries into new therapies that can eventually be tested in the type of large, multi-institutional clinical trials that he helms.

Dr. Lyden also played an important role in refining the National Institute of Health Stroke Scale, a widely used tool for evaluating the severity of a stroke. He produced and directed training and certification videos about the scale that have been viewed almost 2 million times by health care providers around the world.

The co-author of over 350 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters, Dr. Lyden has received research funding from federal agencies continuously for more than 30 years. He is advancing a new approach to stroke treatment using agents that target multiple biochemical pathways at the same time. His studies delve into the toxic effect on brain cells of thrombin, an enzyme that helps blood clot, as well as the therapeutic possibilities of blocking that enzyme. Another research interest centers on lowering the body temperature as a potential stroke treatment.

Dr. Lyden is no stranger to USC. He pursues active collaborations with faculty in the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute and in the Laboratory of NeuroImaging (LONI) to develop therapies for stroke. Even closer connections are likely to speed the progress of complicated trials, such as an ongoing three-year, multicenter preclinical study.

In addition to the allure of facilitating his research partnerships, Dr. Lyden is excited by the academic atmosphere at the Keck School of Medicine.

“I’m very grateful for my 10 years at Cedars-Sinai. It’s been great,” he said. “Here at the final chapter of my long career, I’m very much looking forward to returning to an academic milieu full of challenging graduate students, postdoctoral scholars and research faculty who are fully invested in basic science.”

Dr. Lyden is board-certified in vascular neurology and has been ranked as one of the “Best Doctors in America” continuously since 2009. He will see patients at the LAC+USC Medical Center and the Keck Medicine of USC clinic in Beverly Hills.

At Cedars-Sinai, Dr. Lyden founded the Department of Neurology, the Comprehensive Stroke Center, the Neurology Residency Program and the Vascular Neurology Fellowship. Before that, he was professor and vice chair of clinical neurology at the University of California, San Diego, and clinical chief of neurology and director of the Comprehensive Stroke Center at UCSD Medical Center. He also served as staff physician at the Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center.

Dr. Lyden completed his medical training at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, followed by an internship at Mercy Hospital and Medical Center in San Diego and a neurology residency and stroke fellowship at UCSD Medical Center.

He has earned such honors as the American Stroke Association’s William M. Feinberg Award for Excellence in Clinical Stroke, as well as election to the American Academy of Neurology, the American Neurological Association, the American Heart Association, and the European Stroke Organization.

He is a member of the editorial board of the journals Stroke and Therapeutic Hypothermia and Temperature Management, an associate editor of The International Journal of Stroke and a peer reviewer for Lancet and Science Translational Medicine.

“We’re delighted to welcome Pat Lyden to the faculty,” said Dr. Berislav Zlokovic, director of the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute and professor and chair of physiology and neuroscience at the Keck School of Medicine. “He brings with him an international reputation as a top physician-scientist in the stroke field, and his expertise in preclinical, translational and clinical research makes us stronger. It will be really wonderful to see the results of his current studies.”