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George Bartzokis
In Memoriam

George Bartzokis

Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences

UC Los Angeles
1956-2014
George Bartzokis, a UCLA psychiatry professor known for his visionary research and fierce compassion for friends and patients, died Aug. 22 of pancreatic cancer at his home in Los Angeles. He was 58.

The son of two Greek refugees from World War II, Bartzokis was born in 1956 at a refugee camp in Romania. When he was 14, his parents moved the family to Boston with only $100 and bought a pizza shop in Newton, Massachusetts. Profesor Bartzokis grew up speaking Greek and Romanian at home, so he taught himself English by watching his family’s black-and-white television and reading their Greek-English dictionary. To help his parents’ business, he delivered pizzas throughout high school and college.

Professor Bartzokis completed his undergraduate education at Harvard College and then attended Yale School of Medicine. He went on to complete his internship, residency and fellowship at the Stewart and Lynda Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA and later joined the faculty. At UCLA, Bartzokis dedicated his career to studying the effects of myelin, a white sheath that insulates nerve fibers in the brain. Specifically, he researched how the deterioration of the sheath affects schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease.

A struggle to acquire research funding at the beginning of his career prompted Professor Bartzokis to work until he could prove himself and that his theories were true, but it was his creativity to think of novel ideas about the effects of the myelin sheath that set him apart. His research indicated that poor quality myelin could be a key cause of mental disorders. An Alzheimer's study he led, published in a 2007 issue of the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia, ran counter to more widely accepted research that pinpoints the buildup of a protein, beta amyloid, as the primary cause of the disease. Professor Bartzokis became an outspoken advocate for alternatives to amyloid research.

He is survived by daughters Katherine Bartzokis of Mammoth Lakes and Christina Bartzokis, who recently enrolled at Yale; and his mother, Hrisanthi Bartzokis, who is living in Greece.