Vladimir Parpura, MD, PhD, MAE, holds both a medical degree, awarded from the University of Zagreb in Croatia in 1989, and a doctorate in Neuroscience and Zoology, received from Iowa State University in 1993. He was professor in the Department of Neurobiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, U.S.A. He is presently a Professor and Director of the International Translational Neuroscience Research Institute, Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, China, and a Cheung Kong Scholar. Parpura has been awarded an Honorary Professor title at the University of Rijeka, Croatia, and the journal Neurochemical Research had a special issue in October of 2021 in his honor. He discovered the astrocyte-neuron glutamate-mediated signaling pathway, i.e., gliotransmission. This led to the concept of the tripartite synapse, whereby astrocytes, by releasing a gliotransmitter, can modulate synaptic transmission and plasticity. Subsequently, gliotransmission has proven to be important for sleep, respiration, learning and memory, gut motility and secretion, etc. Parpura interfaces neuroscience with nanoscience/nanotechnology, neurochemistry, synthetic biology and biomedical engineering.
