Dr. Richard Ludueña was born in San Francisco, California, in 1946, the son of immigrants from Argentina. His father Dr. Froilan Ludueña was on the Pharmacology faculty at Stanford University at the time. Dr. Ludueña grew up in Albany, New York. He graduated from Harvard College with a BA in Chemistry in 1967. He received a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Stanford in 1973, showing that α- and β-tubulin are related proteins and highly conserved in evolution. In his post-doctoral work at Stanford he showed that tubulin existed as an α/β heterodimer. In 1976, he joined the faculty at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, reaching the rank of Professor and retiring in 2014. In San Antonio, his work centered on the drug-binding and conformational properties of tubulin and on the purification and functional analysis of the β-tubulin isotypes. He has also worked on the evolution of tubulin. A particular interest has been the role of tubulin isotypes in cancer.
Richard F Ludueña
Professor Emeritus
University of Texas Health San Antonio
