Robert Naviaux, MD, PhD

Robert Naviaux MD, PhD, is a Professor of Genetics, in the Departments of Medicine, Pediatrics, and Pathology. He directs a core laboratory for metabolomics at UCSD. He is the co-founder and a former president of the Mitochondrial Medicine Society, and a founding associate editor of the journal Mitochondrion. He is an internationally known expert in human genetics, inborn errors of metabolism, metabolomics, and mitochondrial medicine. He is the discoverer of the cause of Alpers syndrome—the oldest Mendelian form of mitochondrial disease – and the developer of the first DNA test to diagnose it.

Dr. Naviaux’s work has inspired collaboration across multiple disciplines. Dr. Eric Gordon joined forces with Dr. Naviaux in research exploring metabolomics, mitochondrial function, and chronic inflammatory disease. Together, they co-authored the groundbreaking 2016 study, “Metabolic Features of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome,” published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)—a landmark paper that helped define the metabolic signature of chronic fatigue syndrome and advanced understanding of the biochemical basis of chronic illness.