James Fallon, Ph.D., is professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology at the University of California, Irvine. He is a Sloan and NIH RCDA research scholar who holds Doctoris Honoris and Research Excellence and Teaching awards from multiple institutions, and he is a senior research Fulbright Fellow (Africa). He has been elected president of the UC Irvine faculty and chair of the Medical School faculty, and is the developer of numerous novel medical and research training models.

James discovered a characterized growth factor in the mammalian brain (1984) and was the first to demonstrate how to mobilize significant numbers of adult stem cells and progenitors in the injured brain (1997, 2000), a unique finding highlighted in the NIH Stem Cell report to Congress.

James' lab localized EGF, TGF_, and bFGF in the brain. He was a pioneer in the study of the distribution of dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain, as well as the distribution of opioid peptides, cholecystokinin, and NPY. He has written broadly on schizophrenia, addiction, and the basal ganglia, limbic system, and cortex. He was the neuroanatomist on the team that discovered the presence of extensive postnatal development of new neurons in the human brain, a discovery that was noted as one of the most startling and important findings on the brain during the decade.

James received his biology and chemistry undergraduate training at St. Michael's College in Vermont and his Psychology and Psychophysics degree at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. He carried out his doctoral training in neuroanatomy and neurophysiology at the University of Illinois and his postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Diego.