Larsson To Head General Clinical
Research Center At The University Park Campus

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University Park, Pa. -- Dr. Lars G. Larsson has been named medical director of the new General Clinical Research Center facility at Penn State's University Park campus.

The facility, based in the College of Health and Human Development, is a component of the General Clinical Research Center of the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. Larsson will also serve as the Marie Underhill Noll Professor in Physiology and Clinical Neurophysiology and will have a joint appointment with the Hershey Medical Center's Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology.

Prior to coming to Penn State, Larsson served as assistant senior physician at Karolinska Hospital's Department of Clinical Neurophysiology in Stockholm, Sweden, and associate professor of physiology at the Karolinska Institute. His studies have focused on the contractile properties of skeletal muscles, motor units and muscle cells, with special reference to the effects of aging and disease on skeletal muscles.

"Under Larsson's guidance, the General Clinical Research Center will greatly enhance opportunities for clinical research for investigators throughout the college, as well as researchers in other colleges at the University Park campus conducting clinical research with human subjects," says Barbara Shannon, dean of the College of Health and Human Development.

Currently occupying a small space within Noll Laboratory, the center will expand into a new facility now under construction and expected to be completed in the summer of 1998. The three-story building attached to Noll Lab will house outpatient facilities, a dietitian/kitchen area, research laboratories and offices, inpatient facilities with 8 beds, a nurse station, and laboratories for patient procedures.

"The center is unique in that basic, applied, and clinical research will take place under one roof," Larsson says. "I am looking forward to the many collaborations that will be taking place with other departments in the college; the University, including the Hershey Medical Center; and international institutions," he added. Larsson and fellow researchers have already begun specific research in the center focusing on the effects of aging on muscular function and the causes of muscular paralysis among intensive care patients.

Larsson has served as a member on several professional societies including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American College of Sports Medicine, the European Group for Research into Elderly and Physical Activity, the New York Academy of Science, the Swedish Medical Association, and the Muscle Section of the Swedish Medical Research Council. Along with his long-standing work and research at both the Karolinska Institute and Karolinska Hospital, he has served as a visiting scientist at the Padova University in Italy, a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin's School of Medicine, and a guest scientist at Penn State's Biomechanic Laboratory.

Larsson received both his Ph.D. and M.D. degrees from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.

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Press contact: Pam Peterson, College of Health and Human Development (814) 865-2155