Dr. William F. Maragos Named Vice Chair of VCU Neurology Department

By Sathya Achia Abraham

William F. Maragos, M.D., Ph.D., has been named vice chair in the Department of Neurology in the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. He also will be Chief of Neurology at the Hunter Holmes McGuire Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Maragos comes to VCU from the University of Kentucky Medical Center, where he was a professor of neurology and of anatomy and neurobiology. He also was an associate in the Sanders Brown Center on Aging, an internationally renowned facility dedicated to finding the cause and cure of Alzheimer's disease.

Maragos is a researcher and physician with specific clinical and research interests in movement disorders, especially Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases. He has also received funding from the National Institutes of Health to examine the causes of brain cell death in patients infected with HIV and more recently, has been funded by both the Veterans Administration and American Heart Association to explore novel approaches to prevent brain injury resulting from stroke.

At VCU, Maragos will work closely with James P. Bennett, Jr., M.D., Ph.D., chair in the Department of Neurology, and a team of physicians through a partnership with the VA Medical Center’s Parkinson’s Disease Research, Education and Clinical Center, one of only six such multidisciplinary centers in the country.

“I am both personally and professionally delighted to have a clinician-scientist of Dr. Maragos’s stature and experience join us,” said Bennett, founding director of the VCU Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Multidisciplinary Research and Clinical Center. “He represents a major addition to our translational research efforts directed toward altering the trajectories of brain diseases.”

The new VCU Parkinson’s Center will allow the PADRECC’s clinical care to be extended to the civilian community.

Maragos received his undergraduate degree in biochemistry from the University of New Hampshire; his doctoral degree from the University of Michigan; and his medical degree from Northwestern University. He completed his internship at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor, Mich., and his neurology residency training and post-residency training in movement disorders at the University of Michigan.