Dr. Douglas Junge, a professor emeritus of oral biology and medicine at the UCLA School of Dentistry, passed away on May 5. He was 75.
Junge earned a B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1959 and a Ph.D. in neuro-physiology from UCLA in 1965. He worked as an assistant research zoologist at the Scripps Institute, affiliated with UC San Diego, for two years before joining UCLA’s dental school as an assistant professor in the Section of Oral Biology, where he taught and conducted research for more than four decades.
Junge’s research spanned a wide range of health science topics, including the areas of taste, ionic single neurons, and mathematical models of neuron behavior. He also studied the neurophysiology of the human jaw muscle system and, towards the end of his academic career was working to develop a model of dorsal root ganglion neurons to account for ion channel properties in neuropathic pain conditions. He authored two scholarly texts: “Oral Sensorimotor Function” (1998) and “Nerve and Muscle Excitation,” (Third edition, 1992).
Equally known for his musical talents, over the course of his lifetime Junge played the sousaphone, cello, ukulele, guitar and five-string banjo.
Junge is survived by his wife, Janice, and children Benjamin and Alexa. A memorial was held at the UCLA Faculty Center on May 11. To learn more, see the memorial website and an announcement by UCLA School of Dentistry Dean No-Hee Park.
