Immediate Past President
John W. Swann, Ph.D., is scientific director of Texas Children’s Gordon and Mary Cain Pediatric Neurology Research Foundation Laboratories and a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Neuroscience and Translational Biology and Molecular Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. His research interest is the understanding of basic mechanisms responsible for epilepsy in children and the effect of seizures on brain development.
From electrophysiological studies at the cellular level, Dr. Swann’s work has evolved to research of the basic mechanisms that underlie epilepsy and problems of learning and memory in animals that have experienced seizures in early life. His investigations have helped elucidate how fundamental differences in the properties of developing neurons and neuronal networks can explain why children are susceptible to seizures and how intractable seizures can profoundly affect the growth and development of the brain. Work in his laboratory on an animal model of infantile spasms is aimed at developing new therapies for this devastating childhood epilepsy.
Dr. Swann earned his Ph.D. degree from the University of Maryland, and completed fellowships in neurophysiology at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and in neurobiology in Goteborg, Sweden as a Swedish Medical Council Research Fellow. He has received many awards for his research, including the prestigious Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award from the NIH.