Dr. G. Lee Bidwell promoted to Professor within the Department of Neurology
Published on Thursday, July 22, 2021
Dr. Gene (Lee) Bidwell was hired as an Assistant Professor of Neurology in October 2011 following completion of a Ph.D. and postdoctoral fellowship in Biochemistry. Dr. Bidwell’s training and prior research was focused on developing new treatments for cancer and improving delivery of drugs to tumors. Since joining our department, Dr. Bidwell applied his training in drug development to build a research program focused on developing new treatments for a variety of diseases, including stroke, preeclampsia, and kidney diseases. He and his collaborators and students are developing new strategies for stroke care, with the goal of augmenting existing agents that restore blood flow to the brain and saving brain tissue after ischemic stroke. In other applications, Dr. Bidwell’s lab developed drug carriers that do not cross the placenta. This system can potentially be used in pregnant patients to prevent fetal exposure to drugs being used to treat maternal disorders, thereby improving the safety of therapeutics used during pregnancy. Dr. Bidwell and his collaborators are using this system to develop new treatments for preeclampsia, a disease of pregnancy that is potentially life threatening, and which exposes mothers and babies to a lifetime of increased cardiovascular risk. Additionally, Dr. Bidwell and collaborators developed a drug delivery system that delivers therapeutics to the kidneys with high specificity. They are using this system to deliver therapeutics that restore kidney function and have the potential to delay or prevent the progression of chronic kidney disease and the need for dialysis or renal transplant.Dr. Bidwell’s career progression in our department included promotion to Associate Professor in 2016, the award of tenure in 2018, and most recently his promotion to Professor of Neurology this month. Dr. Bidwell is an author on over fifty peer-reviewed research publications, an inventor on eleven patents, and his research program has directly generated over seven million dollars in external funding. Dr. Bidwell currently teaches in the Neuroscience, Cell and Molecular Biology, and Pharmacology graduate programs. He has trained five graduate students, one postdoctoral fellow, and numerous medical, undergraduate, and high school students in his lab. Dr. Bidwell credits the success of his research program to his excellent students, each of whom brought unique talents and a strong work ethic to their research projects, and to his strong collaborators, who provide expertise in different fields and disease areas. Dr. Bidwell has built a career on a foundation of strong relationships, combining his expertise in drug design and drug development with his collaborators’ expertise in disease etiology and preclinical models. Many of the therapeutics developed in Dr. Bidwell’s lab are now poised to move on to the next steps in the drug development process, including manufacturing, toxicology testing, and clinical trials. He plans to continue his work with the long-term goal of translating these treatments to the clinic, where they can improve the health of others.