Robert K. Naviaux

Robert K. Naviaux (born in 1956) is an American physician-scientist who specializes in mitochondrial medicine and complex chronic disorders. He discovered the cause of Alpers syndrome, and was part of the team that reported the first mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutation to cause genetic forms of autism. Naviaux proposed the cell danger response (CDR) and hyperpurinergia hypothesis for complex disorders in 2014 and directed the first FDA-approved clinical trial to study the safety and efficacy of the antipurinergic drug suramin as a new treatment for autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Naviaux is the founder and co-director of the Mitochondrial and Metabolic Disease Center (MMDC) at UCSD and is a Professor of Genetics in the departments of Medicine, Pediatrics, and Pathology at the UCSD School of Medicine, where he directs a core laboratory for metabolomics. He is the co-founder and a former president of the Mitochondrial Medicine Society (MMS) and a founding associate editor of the journal ''Mitochondrion''. Naviaux received the 2023 United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation Vanguard Award. Provided by Wikipedia