Ricardo Saban

Dr. Saban is a Professor in the UW’s Department of Neurosciences and Professor of Physiology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. He is a graduate of the University of São Paulo, where he received his DVM as well as a Ph.D. in Physiology, and a Livre Docente professorship in Pathology. In the 1980s and 1990s, Dr. Saban did two post-doctoral trainings at the UW (Pharmacology, 1981-1984, and Anesthesiology, 1986-1988) and was a member of the Division of Urology from 1988 until 1999. Dr. Saban is an internationally recognized expert in bladder inflammation especially with respect to angiogenic, neurogenic, and lymphangiogenic factors. He is also a permanent member of the National Institutes of Health (NIDDK) study section and an ad hoc member of National Cancer Institute study sections. The track record of his publications shows that Dr. Saban is a pioneer in generating animal models of diseases and that his laboratory utilizes cutting-edge molecular techniques such as molecular imaging, suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH), cDNA arrays, and transcriptional factor analyses to identify organ- and disease-specific genes, transcription factors, and regulatory networks.