Dr. Keith Vossel is the Michael M. Minchin, Jr., President, J.D. French Alzheimer’s Foundation Endowed Chair, Director of the Mary S. Easton Center for Alzheimer’s Research and Care, Professor of Neurology, and Director of the Katherine and Benjamin Kagan Alzheimer’s Disease Treatment Development Program in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He leads a comprehensive Center incorporating outreach and engagement to diverse communities, electronic health records, social determinants of health, neuroimaging, neurophysiology, genetics, preclinical and clinical trials, and clinical care to develop new therapies for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias and achieve equity in recognition and care of dementia.
Dr. Vossel received a master’s degree in biomedical engineering and medical degree with highest honors from the University of Tennessee. He completed neurology residency at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital, where he served as a chief resident. Dr. Vossel completed fellowship training in behavioral neurology and dementia research at the University of California, San Francisco and Gladstone Institutes.
Dr. Vossel investigates Alzheimer's disease and related dementias with a focus on brain rhythm abnormalities and translational therapies. Key discoveries include the presence of silent epileptic activity, occurring during sleep and accelerating cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease, effects of amyloid-β and tau deposition on brain rhythms and related cognitive impairments in Alzheimer’s disease, and novel pathological functions of tau in Alzheimer’s disease and dementia with Lewy bodies. Dr. Vossel led a phase 2a clinical trial showing that low doses of an antiseizure drug can improve memory and problem solving in patients with Alzheimer’s disease and detectable epileptic activity. Dr. Vossel is broadening these studies in Greater Los Angeles and incorporating them into the expanded activities of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center in the UCLA Easton Center.
The Center has begun an intensive effort to improve recognition of dementia in primary care, including brain health screening tools in the electronic health records, and to improve diversity of patient referrals to Memory Clinic and clinical trials. The Center focuses on health equity, diversity, and inclusion and acknowledges the structural determinants of health and social inequities, and the impact they have on brain health, Alzheimer’s risk, prevalence, and longevity post-diagnosis.
Dr. Vossel has written Op-Eds for the Los Angeles Times and has been featured in numerous national and international media outlets including CNN, NPR, The Washington Post, Financial Times, USA Today, STAT, Boston Globe, Daily Mail, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, FOX 11 LA, CBS 2 and KCAL News, KNBC-LA and NBC Channel 4 News, KNX News Radio in LA, Doctor Radio on Sirius XM Radio, and Spectrum News 1 SoCal. Dr. Vossel has received the John Douglas French Alzheimer's Distinguished Research Scholar Award, a Part the Cloud Translational Research Award from the Alzheimer's Association, the Bernese Epilepsy Award from the University of Bern, Switzerland, and the Outstanding Health Care Innovator Award from the Los Angeles Business Journal.
