World Parkinson Coalition Inc.
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Speaker Biographies
The following list represents a portion of the speakers who participated as faculty at the World Parkinson Congress. Biographies were submitted voluntarily. A full list of faculty can be found at: www.worldpdcongress.org/Program/featured_speakers.cfm .
Click on the individual names for a short biography.
Ellen Abramson (USA) received a BA from Brown University (Providence, RI) and a MA from The Jewish Theological Seminary of America (New York, NY). She was Principal of a Solomon Schechter Day School and is currently President of Jewish Family Service of Rockland, Inc.
Twenty-five years ago, Ms. Abramson's husband was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and because of her experiences as a care-giver, she has advocated for comprehensive and integrated care for her husband and for PD patients, in general. Most recently, her concerns have focused on appropriate in-hospital management of symptoms for patients with Parkinson's disease. Additionally, Ms. Abramson has spoken about care-giving and started a Well-Spouse support group at a hospital near her home.
Patrick Aebischer, MD (US) was trained as an MD (1980) and a Neuroscientist (1983) at the University of Geneva and Fribourg in Switzerland. From 1984 to 1992, he worked at Brown University in Providence (Rhode Island, USA), as an Assistant and then Associate Professor of Medical Sciences. In the fall of 1992, he returned to Switzerland as a Professor and Director of the Surgical Research Division and Gene Therapy Center at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV) in Lausanne. In 1999, Patrick Aebischer was nominated President of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) by the Swiss Federal Council. He took office on March 17th, 2000. His current research focuses on the development of cell and gene transfer approaches for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.
J. Eric Ahlskog, Ph.D., M.D. Dr. Ahlskog is Professor of Neurology at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN and Chair of the Mayo-Rochester Section of Movement Disorders. He is a full-time practicing physician, devoting much of his practice to patients with parkinsonism. He has written extensively on Parkinson's disease, including the recently published book for patients and family, "The Parkinson's Disease Treatment Book: Partnering with Your Doctor to Get the Most from Your Medications" (Oxford University Press, 2005, 532 pp.). His professional training included a Ph.D. from Princeton University and M.D. from Dartmouth Medical School, plus internship and medical residency at the University of Chicago and neurology residency at the Mayo Clinic. He has been on staff at Mayo since 1981.
Karen Anderson, MD (U.S.) is a psychiatrist at the University of Maryland with appointments in the departments of both psychiatry and neurology. She did her undergraduate and medical training at the University of Chicago, and completed a psychiatry residency training program and a research fellowship in brain imaging at Columbia University. She is currently an assistant professor in the departments of psychiatry and neurology at the Unversity of Maryland, and is the Psychiatrist for the Movement Disorders group in the Department of Neurology. Dr. Anderson conducts research in brain imaging relevant to behavioral changes (cognitive impairment and psychiatric symptoms) in movement disorders patients. She specializes in study of these symptoms in patients with Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease. She is currently in the final year of a K23 Mentored Clinical Scientist Training Award which involves the study of obsessive and compulsive symptoms in Huntington's disease using fMRI. She is also piloting a brain imaging study of mood and cognitive changes in early Parkinson's disease. Dr. Anderson is collaborating with Dr. Lisa Shulman, who is PI of the Maryland Parkinson's and Movement Disorders Center "Q & F Study (Quality of Life & Function Study)" at the University of Maryland, to examine the effects of behavioral symptoms on quality of life and functional ability in movement disorders patients.
Patricia Archbold, RN, DNSc, FAAN (U.S.) is the Elnora E. Thomson Distinguished Professor at the Oregon Health & Sciences University and an Adjunct Investigator at the Kaiser Permanente Northwest Region Center for Health Research. Her research focuses on family care for chronically ill persons and frail elders. Dr. Archbold is a co-investigator on the Parkinson's Spouses Project, a longitudinal study designed to elucidate the dynamics of family care over time in this population. Dr. Archbold is the Director of the John A. Hartford Center of Geriatric Nursing Excellence and program director for the T32 in gerontological nursing . She is currently PI for "PREP: Family-based care for frail older persons" (R01 AG17909) a study funded by the National Institute on Aging, the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, and the National Institute for Nursing Research.
John Argue (US) attended UC Berkeley from 1960-1965, attaining a B.A. in English and later an M.A. in Dramatic Art. During his time at Cal, he won the prestigious Woodrow Wilson Fellow award, the Eisner Prize, and was Regents Fellow in Dramatic Art. After graduation Mr. Argue began teaching acting and theater history at a number of distinguished academic institutions, including UC Berkeley, San Francisco State University, The American Conservatory Theater, and Dell Arte School of Mime & Comedy, among others.
In 1969, he created the Openhand Studio where for sixteen years he taught acting, voice, and improvisation, and wrote, produced, and directed a number of theatrical productions (he won a Drama Critics Award for his play Anagnorisis.) In his unique approach to training actors he integrated techniques from the Human Potential Movement, Yoga, Tai Chi Chuan, and Zen meditation. From 1965-1999, Mr. Argue also worked as a professional actor performing in many Bay Area theaters, television commercials, and films. He is a member of Actors' Equity, Screen Actors Guild, and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.
In the 1980's, Mr. Argue began working in the field of Drama Therapy, teaching acting in therapeutic settings and working with hospitalized adults and children with disabilities. Recently he has focused on teaching movement and voice classes for people with Parkinson's Disease, developing training regimes that delay and reverse the symptoms of the disease. In 2000, his book entitled Parkinson's Disease & the Art of Moving, which trains physical therapists to teach movement to those afflicted with this debilitating disease, was published by New Harbinger Publications. In August 2003, Mr. Argue released a Video Companion to his book. He has recently been invited to several cities throughout the US to train teachers in his methods and to encourage the formation of Parkinson's exercise programs. Mr. Argue presently resides in Oakland, California where he enjoys cooking, gardening, computers, and writing.
Mary G Baker, MBE, (UK) is President of the European Federation of Neurological Associations, the European Parkinson's Disease Association, Vice President of the European Brain Council, Consultant to the World Health Organization (WHO) and Chair of the Working Group on Parkinson's Disease, formed by the WHO in May 1997. She is Director at Large for the World Stroke Association, patient editor of the British Medical Journal, member of the ABPI Code of Practice and has received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Surrey in recognition of her work within the world of Parkinson's disease. Mary has been invited as a World Parkinson Congress committee member to bring a European flavor to this important global initiative and to ensure that the patients and their families' needs are central to the congress program.
Krys Bankiewicz, M.D. (U.S.) is engaged in research that focuses on restorative interventions, specifically drug delivery and gene transfer, in models of Parkinson's disease and brain tumors. His laboratory studies delivery of therapeutic agents into the central nervous system through automated cell-implantation, convection-enhanced and gene transfer-based delivery methods, as well as in vivo applications of MRI and PET to detect in-vivo changes in brain and their correlation with functional outcome. Most recently his laboratory was involved in the launching of gene therapy trial for PD using AAV vector encoding AADC gene. Use of neuroregeneration approach with viral vector delivery of GDNF gene is now under investigation.
Roger A Barker, M.D. (UK) has been the University lecturer and honorary consultant in neurology at the University of Cambridge since 2000, prior to which he held an MRC Clinician Scientist Fellowship at the Cambridge Centre for Brain Repair (CBRC). His research interests are Parkinson's and Huntington's disease and he runs research clinics in both these disorders at the CBRC, with particular emphasis on defining the natural history and heterogeneity of these disorders. This work also involves the development of better biomarkers of disease, as well as better characterising the extent and origin of the non-motor features of these conditions. His laboratory based research has concentrated on developing cell therapies for these disorders, including work on primary ransplants, xenogeneic tissue grafts and stem cells. This work has concentrated in recent years on the problems of xenografted cells in terms of cell migration and axon growth and the endogenosur precursor cell in the neurodegenerating brain. Dr Roger Barker has published over 100 papers, written 5 books and edits the journal Advances in Clinical Neuroscience and Rehabilitation. He is a member of the editorial board of a number of journals and is a member of the UK Parkinson's disease Society Research Advisory panel and MRC Stem cell clinical liason committee.
M. Flint Beal, MD (U.S.) is the Anne Parrish Titzell Professor and Chairman of the Department of Neurology and Neuroscience at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University and Director of the Neurology service at the New York Presbyterian Cornell Campus. Dr. Beal received his medical degree from the University of Virginia in 1976 and did his internship and first year residency in Medicine at New York-Cornell before completing his residency in Neurology at The Massachusetts General Hospital. He joined the neurology faculty at Harvard in 1983. Dr. Beal was Professor of Neurology at the Harvard Medical School and Chief of the Neurochemistry laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital before moving to Cornell. Dr. Beal's research has focused on the mechanism of neuronal degeneration in Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Dr. Beal is the author or co-author of more than 350 scientific articles and more than 125 books, book chapters and reviews. He is a co-editor of the "Dana Guide to Brain Health" and "Neurodegenerative Diseases, Neurobiology, Pathology and Therapeutics". Dr. Beal is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
Mara Behlau PhD (Brazil) was born in São Paulo City - Brazil and is a speech-language-pathologist, voice specialist. She completed her undergraduate program at "Universidade Federal de São Paulo - Escola Paulista de Medicina, UNIFESP-EPM", in 1977. In 1978 she accomplished a specialization course on Human Communication Disorders at the same university. In 1979 she received her first training abroad at the "Policlinico di Milano", in Milan, under the direction of Prof. Ettore Bocca, and at the "Centro Medico Phoniatrico", in Padua, Italy, under the direction of Prof. Lucio Croatto. In 1984 she got her master degree and in 1986 her PhD both on a convenium between "Universidade Federal de São Paulo - Escola Paulista de Medicina, UNIFESP-EPM" and "Michigan State University- MSU", East Lansing, under the advisory of Prof. Paulo Pontes (Brazil) and Prof. Oscar Tosi (USA). In 1988-9 she was a post-doctoral fellow at the "University of California San Francisco - UCSF", under the supervision of Prof. Herbert Dedo.
She authored several books on voice (voice assessment, disorders and acoustic of Brazilian Portuguese), including the textbook for undergraduate program BEHLAU, M. & PONTES, P. - Avaliação e tratamento das disfonias. São Paulo, Lovise, 1995, 312pp and the textbook for the graduate program BEHLAU, M. (org.) - Voz. O livro do especialista. Rio de Janeiro, Revinter. Vol. I and II, 2005, 924pp.
She has received 15 scientific acknowledgments for best projects and researches and three important awards, including an achievement award from the "Pacific Voice and Speech Foundation", in 1997, a great honor of the "Sociedade Brasileira de Laringologia e Voz - SBLV", in 1999, and a great honor of the "Sociedade Brasileira de Fonoaudiologia - SBFa, in 2004.
She was one of the scientific founders of the "Associação Brasil-Parkinson - ABP", in 1985 being the coordinator of the Speech-Language Pathology Service at the institution. She is the director of the "Centro de Estudos da Voz - CEV", offering a 2-year graduate program for SLP in voice specialization. She belongs to several international societies and editorial boards, being on the scientific board of The Voice Foundation - TVF, The Pacific Voice and Speech Foundation - PVSF and The International Association for Logopedics and Phoniatrics - IALP, where she is currently the president-elected.
Alim Louis Benabid, PhD was born in 1942, he received his MD in 1970 and his PhD in Physics in 1978 at the Joseph Fourier University of Grenoble (UJFG), and completed his basic neurosciences training during a sabbatical at the Salk Institute from 1979 to 1980. He was appointed Staff Neurosurgeon in 1972, and Professor of Experimental Medicine at UJFG in 1978. He is Professor of Biophysics. since 1983, Director of the Laboratory of Preclinical Neurosciences at INSERM since 1988, Head of Neurosurgery at the Joseph Fourier University Hospital since 1989 and additionally Coordinator of the Center for Functional Neurosurgery "Claudio Munari", Milano, since 1999. He has been elected as a Member of the French Academy of Medicine in 1999, of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Belgium and of the Academy of Sciences at the Institut de France in 2002. His research has initially focused on mathematical modelling of intracranial pressure, MRI spectroscopy, molecular biology of brain tumours and basal ganglia physiology, as well as neurosurgical robotics. Since his discovery, in 1987, of the effects of high frequency stimulation on neural elements, he established the Deep Brain Stimulation therapy for movement disorders, which he extended to several targets and to other pathologies such as dystonia, epilepsy, and experimental models for obesity, psychosurgery. He authored or co-authored a large number of papers in peer reviewed journals and book chapters. His current research, from the neurosurgery department to animal models, explores the acute and long term biological effects of high frequency stimulation, from neural firing to gene expression, and to understand its mechanisms of action. For this he has received several international awards.
Ken Bergmann, M.D.(U.S.)is Associate Professor of Neurology and Director of the William Edwards Murray Center for Research on Parkinson's Disease and Related Disorders at the Medical University of South Carolina.
He obtained his BA in Psychology at the Johns Hopkins University and his MD from Stony Brook School of Medicine. After residency in neurology and a fellowship in movement disorders with Melvin Yahr at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, he remained on the faculty in the Clinical Center for Parkinson's Disease at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Prior to joining MUSC, Dr Bergmann also held positions at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and was in private practice in Charlotte, NC.
Dr. Bergmann is a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology and a member of the Research Committee on Parkinson's Disease of the World Federation of Neurology, where he also serves on the International Advisory Committee which organizes the biannual International Congress on Parkinson's Disease.
Erwan Bezard, PhD (France) is a graduate of the University Victor Segalen - Bordeaux 2 and was a visiting research fellow at University of Manchester (UK). He holds an INSERM researcher position since 2001. Bezard has authored or co-authored over 70 professional publications in the field of neurobiology, most of which are on Parkinson's disease and related disorders. He is perhaps best known for the reappraisal of both the identification of the nature of compensatory mechanisms that mask the progression Parkinson's disease and their sequential activation in non-human primate models that mimic Parkinson's progression.
Bezard's current research interests include the study of the compensatory mechanisms, the levodopa-induced dyskinesia, the basic pathophysiology of basal ganglia circuitry, and the development of new strategies to alleviate symptoms and/or to slow disease progression. Bezard consults for several drug companies in the field of movement disorders and is a non-executive director of Motac Neuroscience and Motac Cognition.
Kevin M. Biglan, M.D., MPH (USA) is an assistant professor of Neurology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in Rochester, New York. He is a graduate of Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia where he remained to complete a residency in Neurology. After residency, he trained in Movement Disorders and Experimental Therapeutics under Drs. Ira Shoulson and Karl Kieburtz at the University of Rochester where he simultaneously completed an MPH in clinical investigation studying predictors of dopaminergic non-motor complications in early Parkinson’s disease.
Upon completing his fellowship, Dr. Biglan took a faculty position at Johns Hopkins University. While at Hopkins he was the director of the Johns Hopkins Comprehensive Care Center sponsored by the National Parkinson’s Foundation. He returned to the University of Rochester in 2005 as faculty to pursue experimental therapeutics in movement disorders. Dr. Biglan’s current research interests focus on the relationship of clinical and biomarker outcomes in movement disorders and the development and evaluation of disease modifying therapies in neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Biglan is actively involved in the Parkinson Study Group and Huntington Study Group.
Anders Björklund (Sweden) has been researching reparative and neuroprotective mechanisms in the CNS using cell replacement and gene transfer techniques. In the 1970s his group pioneered studies of neural transplantation to the brain, and developed techniques for cell replacement in animal models of Parkinson's disease. Over the last 15 years the Lund neural transplantation program, headed by Professor Olle Lindvall, has been one of the leading clinical programs for the development of restorative therapies in Parkinson´s disease.
Current research at the Wallenberg Neuroscience Center is focussed on the use of neural stem cells and viral vector-mediated gene transfer for neuroprotection and brain repair, with the aim to develop new therapeutic approaches for Parkinson´s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders.
Judith Blazer, MS (US) is the Executive Director of WE MOVE. She has been with WE MOVE since its inception in 1991 and has functioned as Executive Director since 1994. Ms. Blazer earned her Bachelor's Degree in health education from New York University, and her Master's Degree from Columbia University, School of Dental and Oral Surgery. Ms. Blazer combined a career of healthcare administration with a teaching position at Columbia SDOS for over 15 years. Utilizing her experience in health care delivery, education, marketing, communications, and administration, Ms. Blazer has overseen WE MOVE's evolution from a small, University-based program, to an internationally recognized and highly respected not-for-profit organization. WE MOVE is an accredited provider of continuing medical education (CME) and the only not-for-profit organization that provides medical and scientific information about all movement disorders to patients and their families as well as healthcare professionals. Ms. Blazer, a recognized leader in the movement disorder community, serves on numerous committees and advisory boards of not-for-profit organizations including the American Academy of Neurology/Movement Disorder Society Planning Committee for regional CME courses; American Academy of Neurology, Subcommittee on the Education of the Non-Neurologist; the American Brain Coalition; American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics (ASENT) Advocacy Task Force; Child Neurology Foundation, Subcommittee for Advocacy Relations; Easter Seals, Spasticity National Advisory Board; and American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine, Continuing Education Committee.
Martha Churchill Bohn, PhD (US) is a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Biological Chemistry at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University. She is Director of the Neurobiology Program at Children's Memorial Research Center (CMRC). Dr. Bohn served as Interim Director of the CMRC from 2001-2003. Dr. Bohn received her AB degree in Chemistry from Cornell University and her PhD degree in Neuroscience from the University of Connecticut in 1979. She has held faculty positions at Cornell Medical College, the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and the University of Rochester Medical Center. Dr. Bohn serves on the editorial boards for Experimental Neurology, and Gene Therapy and Molecular Biology. She has served as President for the American Society for Neural Transplantation and Repair and the Chicago Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience. She has also served on many advisory boards for scientific societies, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. She is presently a member of the NIH Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee that reviews all gene therapy clinical protocols and advises on policy related to the gene therapy field. Dr. Bohn's research is focused on understanding development of the brain and generating novel therapies for neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's and Lou Gehrig's diseases. Her research program is supported by 4 grants from the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Bohn has lectured extensively and has published over 100 articles in scientific journals and books. While Interim Director of CMRC, Dr. Bohn founded a novel program called CRIB (Childrens Research on Injury to the Brain) to promote the translation and application of neuroscience research to diseases and injuries of children. She is also involved in several translational research projects aimed at getting novel gene therapies to the clinic for Parkinson's disease. Dr. Bohn has recently established a viral vector translational resource center to facilitate the translation of basic science to the clinic in the field of gene therapies for neurodegenerative diseases and injuries to the nervous system.
Alba Bonetti, RN (Italy) is Nurse coordinator of Centro per la Malattia di Parkinson e Disturbi del Movimento at the Istituti Clinici di Perfezionamento, in Milan. She has a Masters Degree in Health Care Services Management. She is a founding member of Associazione Italiana Parkinsoniani (AIP). She has been involved in care delivery and quality of life of people affected by Parkinson's disease and their families since 1990 by promoting multidisciplinary care plans. She has a 14 years experience on clinical trials in Parkinson's disease. She is involved in teaching and she has served in numerous committees of Parkinson Study Group.
Vincenzo Bonifati, MD (Italy) received his M.D. degree in 1988 and the specialization in neurology in 1992 from "La Sapienza" University of Roma, Italy. In 2003 he completed 4-year laboratory training and received his Ph.D. in human genetics from the Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. From 1988 he has been collaborating with the Parkinson's disease center of "La Sapienza" University (Roma), participating in research on clinical, epidemiological and genetic aspects of neurodegenerative diseases. From 1993 his research interests have been focused on the study of the etiopathogenesis of Parkinson's disease and the role of genetic factors. In 2000 he moved to the Dept. of Clinical Genetics of Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam, to perform research in the field of molecular genetics of neurodegeneration. Here, he contributed to the identification of PARK7, a locus for autosomal recessive early onset parkinsonism, and, in 2003, he completed the project of positional cloning of DJ-1, the gene defective at the PARK7 locus. He has recently established his-own group within the lab of Prof. Ben Oostra at ErasmusMC Rotterdam, focusing on the study of genetics of PD and related disorders. He has published more than 80 papers in peer-reviewed journals, including several contributions dealing with molecular and clinical aspects of parkinsonism associated with mutations in the parkin (PARK2), PINK1 (PARK6), and very recently, the LRRK2 (PARK8) gene.
Melanie M. Brandabur, MD (USA) is a neurologist specializing in Parkinson’s disease and other Movement Disorders. She completed a clinical fellowship in Movement Disorders under the direction of Dr Harold Klawans and Dr Christopher Goetz and a basic science fellowship in Neurodegenerative diseases under Dr Elliott Mufson, both at Rush University in Chicago. She also studied at the Hospital de la Salpetriere in Paris, France under Dr. Yves Agid.
Dr. Brandabur is currently the medical director of the National Parkinson Foundation (NPF) Center of Excellence Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Center at Alexian Neurosciences Institute in the Chicago area. She is also an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago where she conducts a PD clinic as part of her outreach effort to underserved communities.
Dr. Brandabur is strong advocate of the team approach to healthcare and is fortunate to have an equally caring and committed staff. Working closely with colleagues in Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Rehabilitative Medicine and Neurosurgery, the center offers a multidisciplinary approach to the treatment of PD and parkinsonism.
Dr. Brandabur is also strongly committed to PD education, both at the professional and patient level. She and is a frequent lecturer to physicians, nurses, social workers and other professionals as well as to community groups and people affected by PD.
Dr. Brandabur serves as a PI in clinical trials for PD. Other research interests include speech and gesture disorders in PD, in cooperation with Dr. David McNeill and Dr. Susan Duncan of University of Chicago. This work has been supported in part by the National Science Foundation.
Dr. Brandabur also serves as a medical advisor for Community Partners for Parkinson Care (CPP), an initiative by the National Parkinson Foundation to improve outreach, education, and care for persons with Parkinson’s disease in underserved, minority, and rural communities. In conjunction with Northwestern Medical Center and Schwab Rehabilitation Hospital, the NPF center at Alexian serves as part of the Chicago area CPP team, one of six nation-wide sites for this innovative outreach effort.
Richard Bringewatt, (U.S.) is a nationally recognized leader on health systems transformation for people with complex chronic conditions. Currently, Mr. Bringewatt is Co-founder and President of the National Health Policy Group (NHPG) and Co-founder and Chair of the National Alliance for Specialty Healthcare Programs (SHP Alliance), a national leadership group of healthcare plans and programs specializing in care of persons with serious and disabling chronic conditions.
Prior to establishing the National Health Policy Group, Mr. Bringewatt was co-founder and President and CEO of the National Chronic Care Consortium (NCCC). Mr. Bringewatt evolved the NCCC from a national demonstration to a national leadership association involving many of the premier health plans and integrated health and long-term care delivery systems in the United States. The NCCC was widely known for its real-world, high-quality solutions for improving health policy and practice using systems integration and planned change technologies.
As a seasoned executive and social entrepreneur, Mr. Bringewatt has developed multiple policy and program innovations. He speaks, writes, and consults extensively with a broad spectrum of national and international leaders and groups and has served on numerous boards, committees and expert panels, including expert advisor and panelist for the PBS television special, "Who Care: Chronic illness in America." Mr. Bringewatt has a master's degree in administration and social policy from the University of Michigan.
David J Brooks MD DSc FRCP FMed Sci (U.K.) is Hartnett Professor of Neurology and Head of the Department of Sensorimotor Systems in the Division of Neuroscience, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College, London. He is also Head of the Neurology Group at the Medical Research Council Clinical Sciences Centre, Hammersmith Hospital, London. Additionally, he is Chief Medical Officer of Imanet, GE Healthcare PLC.
He is a member of the Research Advisory Board of the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Disease Research, the UK Medical Research Council Neuroscience and Mental Health Board, the Research Advisory Panel of the UK Parkinson's Disease Society (Chairman 1996-7), and UK Huntington's Disease Association. He was Chairman of the Scientific Issues Committee of the Movement Disorder Society 1998-2002 and of the Council of Management of the UK Parkinson's Disease Society 1997-8. He is on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Neural Transmission, Synapse, Molecular Imaging and Biology, and Current Trends in Neurology, and was on the editorial boards of the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry 1998-2004 and Movement Disorders 1994-1998. In 2001 he was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Science, UK. In 2002 he was invited to give the Stan Fahn Lecture at the International Congress of Movement Disorders, Miami, in 2003 the George Cotzias Lecture in Madrid, in 2004 the Charles E Wilson Lecture, The Psychobiology Institute. Jerusalem March 2004, and in 2005 the Kuhl-Lassen lecture at the Society of Nuclear Medicine, Toronto.
His research involves the use of positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance imaging to diagnose and study the progression of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease and their validation of biomarkers therapeutic trials. To date, he has published over 250 reports in peer reviewed journals, including Nature, and his research is currently supported by grants from the UK Medical Research Council, the UK Wellcome Trust, Michael J Fox Foundation, UK Parkinson's Disease Society, and industry.
Gila Bronner, MPH MSW (Israel) is a certified sex therapist and is the director of the Sex Therapy Service in the new Sexual Medicine Center of the Sheba Medical Center, Israel (since January 2004). Besides sex therapy, the job includes training of sex therapists and counseling of physicians, nurses, social workers and health educators to cope with sexual aspects in their work. Between 1997 and 2004 she was a sex therapist in the nerologic, psychiatric and cardiologic departments of the Tel-Aviv Medical Center in Israel, contributing to a multidisciplinary approach in the promotion of sexual health and treatment of sexual problems. In the neurologic department she conducted a research on sexual changes due to Parkinson's disease and helped the multidisciplinary staff develop skills to cope with these sexual changes. A member of the board of directors of the Israeli Family Planning Association (FPA) from 1985 to 2000. Today, vice-president and board member of the Israeli association of sex therapists (ITAM). She published books on sexuality and sex education for children, adolescents and elders and articles in the professional literature. Her international activities include training of physicians, nurses and social workers in Lisbon (2004), Croatia (2002), Australia (2002), Athens (2002), Trinidad (2000) and Cyprus (1998). She was the chair-person of the scientific committee of the European congress of sexology 2002, and member of the scientific committee of the World congress of sexology 2005. Her language proficiency includes: English (very good), German (good), French, Spanish & Polish (fair).
Patrik Brundin, M.D., Ph.D. (Sweden) is a Professor of Neuroscience at the Neuronal Survival Unit, Department of Experimental Medical Science, at Lund University. He is also the Head of the Department of Experimental Medical Science. Professor Brundin finished his Ph.D. at Lund University in 1988 and became a M.D. in 1992. During his thesis work 1983-1988 he studied neural transplantation in the brain focusing on developing a neural transplantation therapy for Parkinson's disease which involved transplantation of dopaminergic neurons. In 1987, Professor Brundin was the cell biologist responsible for the tissue used in the first Swedish clinical trials with neural transplantation in humans. So far he has participated in clinical trials with intracerebral grafts in 19 Parkinsonian patients (including one in Singapore). The overall objectives of his research are to refine neural grafting for Parkinson's disease, explore brain plasticity in the context of adult neurogenesis and to improve our understanding of Huntington's disease pathogenesis in order to develop biomarkers and novel therapies. The specific aims are to develop human embryonic stem cells as a source for transplantation in Parkinson's disease; to understand mechanisms underlying graft-induced dyskinesias in Parkinson's disease; to examine neurogenesis in the adult brain as a source of plasticity; and to explore neuropathology, pathogenetic mechanisms and biomarkers in Huntington's disease.
Professor Brundin is chairman, coordinator or organizer for numerous project and organizations. He is coordinator of the Swedish Research Council Strong Research Environment on Brain neurodegeneration, plasticity and repair (NeuroFortis) (2005-today); Coordinator of the Nordic Center of Excellence - Molecular Mechanisms of Neurodegenerative Diseases (2005-today); Steering committee of the EU-sponsored Network of Excellence NeuroNE (European consortium for research into neurodegenerative disorders) (2005-today); Governing Board of EU sponsored integrated project PROMEMORIA. (From cell-cell recognition to memory formation. New strategies for the treatment of dysfunctional plasticity, learning and memory) (2005-today); Chair of the Clinical/basic science links committee at the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO) (2004-2005); Steering committee of the Euro-HD Network (2003-today); Chairman of Phase III Medical School Executive Committee, Medical Faculty of Lund University (2002-2004); Coordinator of the EC-sponsored Marie Curie Training Site on "Neurodegeneration, cell rescue and brain repair"(2001-2005); Coordinator of the EC-sponsored Concerted Action on "Early Pathogenetic Markers for Slow Neurodegenerative Diseases"(201-2004); President of NECTAR (Network for European CNS Transplantation and Restoration) (1994-2000). Professor Brundin serves on numerous review committees, editorial boards, and advisory groups. He has authored over 160 original articles as well as more than 60 reviews and book chapters. In 2003 he was identified as one of the 0.5% most cited researchers within neuroscience during the last 20 years, by ISI (Institute for Scientific Information), a position he still holds.
Professor Brundin has received numerous grants and awards. In 2004 he was awarded the The Bernard Sanberg Memorial Award for outstanding research contributions in the field of neural transplantation and repair and in 2003 he was awarded the Medal of Honour from the Swedish Parkinson Association. He is an elected member of Academia Europaea since 2004. Other awards are The Catedra Santiago Grisolía Chair Prize, Valencia, Spain (2001); Presented with The Outstanding Young Persons of the World Award for research and academic leadership by the Swedish Junior Chamber (2001); Awarded Dr. Eric K. Fernström Foundation's Prize to young Swedish scientists (1999).
Professor Brundin is a consultant for several biotech companies. He is frequently represented the Medicon Valley (promoting the biotech industry in the Öresund region) notably with lectures in Japan and USA. He is on a regular basis cited in newspaper articles and has appeared on television and radio on around 10 occasions in relation to scientific news or debate.
Kathleen Coen Buckwalter, PhD, RN, FAAN (U.S.) University of Iowa Foundation Distinguished Professor of Nursing, was named Associate Provost for Health Sciences from 1997-2004. In addition to her primary academic appointment as professor of nursing, she is Co-Director of the University's Center on Aging, Co-Director of the Hartford Center for Geriatric Nursing Excellence, Associate Director of the Gerontological Nursing Interventions Research Center, and has secondary appointments in the College of Medicine Departments of Psychiatry and Internal Medicine. Buckwalter is recognized internationally for her research in psychiatric nursing, aging and long term care, and has a sustained record of private and federal support related to the evaluation of clinical nursing interventions for geropsychiatric populations. Her particular interest is in behavioral management strategies for rural caregivers of persons with dementia and the effectiveness of community programs to prevent, minimize, and treat psychiatric problems in the rural elderly. With support from the NIMH and Administration on Aging, Buckwalter headed the Mental Health of the Rural Elderly Outreach Project. She also served as principal investigator of the PLST Model: Effectiveness for Rural ADRD Caregivers funded by NINR.
In 1999, Dr. Buckwalter received the Distinguished Contribution to Research Award from the Midwest Nursing Research Society and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine. In 2001 she was the recipient of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association Excellence in Research Award, and the first recipient of the National Gerontological Nursing Association Board of Directors Award. Dr. Buckwalter serves on numerous review committees, editorial boards, and advisory groups. She has authored over 225 articles, over 75 book chapters, 8 health policy and commission papers, over 40 monographs/videos/media, over 75 editorials/reviews/commentaries, and co-edited eight books on topics such as geriatric mental health, memory, aging, and dementia.
Robert E Burke, MD (U.S.) is a Professor of Neurology and Pathology and the Director of Laboratory Research in Parkinson's Disease at Columbia University Medical Center. He is currently the Program Director of the Morris K. Udall Parkinson's Disease Research Center of Excellence at Columbia. He has demonstrated that programmed cell death (apoptosis) occurs in dopamine neurons of the substantia nigra both during normal development and in living animal models of PD. His current work is focused on the regulation of developmental cell death in dopamine neurons by neurotrophic factors such as GDNF, and the molecular basis of programmed cell death in models of parkinsonism. Dr Burke has been invited to participate on the Program Committee to provide expertise on mechanisms of cell death in dopamine neurons.
Donald Calne, MD(Canada) received his Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Medicine degrees from Oxford University. He served as a neurologist at the Hammersmith Hospital and Royal Postgraduate Medical School in London and then as Clinical Director and Chief of the Experimental Therapeutics Branch of the National Institute of Neurological Disease at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. In 1981 he was appointed Director of the Neurodegenerative Disorders Centre at the University of British Columbia (Canada). He held this position until 2001.
Susan Calne (Canada) trained at St. Thomas' Hospital London. After moving to the USA in 1974 she obtained her nursing license and was a Clinical Instructor in at Carriage Hill of Bethesda. In 1981 Susan became Clinical Co-ordinator of the UBC Movement Disorders Clinic, the first in Canada, developing a program for patient counselling and education in both Parkinson's and Dystonia. In 1987 she was the first nurse appointed to the board of the Parkinson Society Canada where she was responsible for Patient Services until 1998. During this time she implemented the Clinical Assistance and Outreach nursing programmes. This group subsequently developed, tested and published The Parkinson's Impact Scale in both patients and caregivers. Susan is an assistant editor for Parkinsonism and Related Disorders. She is an educational resource for Parkinson Society BC. In 2001 Susan was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada and was the recipient of the first Mimi Feutl Award from Parkinson Society Canada both for services to patients and their families. She lectures professional and patient groups and has published over 60 papers, book chapters, patient handbooks and pamphlets. She co-produced the video “Living Well with Parkinsons” for newly diagnosed patients with Parkinson Society BC and is currently involved in developing a Canadian ‘Train the Trainer’ program for nurses and caregivers looking after Late Stage Parkinson’s disease.
Jonathan Carr, PhD (South Africa) trained at the University of Cape Town, and did his Neurology Residency at Mt Sinai Medical Center in New York. After a year of research concerning the genetics of primary generalized epilepsies, he joined the Neurology Unit at the University of Stellenbosch, which he currently heads. After a sabbatical at the University of British Columbia during which he worked on the etiology of Parkinson's disease, he has been studying Parkinson's disease in Southern Africa. He has recently completed his PhD on a novel form of progressive myoclonic epilepsy.
Julie Carter, RN (U.S.) is an Associate Professor of Neurology and Associate Director at the OHSU Parkinson Center of Oregon. She holds a joint appointment at the School of Nursing and the School of Medicine. In addition to her own research and clinical care, she directs the clinical research program and educational program at the center. Ms. Carter received her BSN in 1973 and her M.S. in 1976 from Oregon Health and Science University. She joined the Movement Disorders Program at OHSU in 1979.
Ms. Carter is dedicated to improving the lives of people with Parkinson's disease and their families. She approaches Parkinson's disease as a family disease and provides care accordingly to both the patient and their family. She has taken a special interest in setting up innovative programs to help patients and families with Parkinson's disease and has been involved in multiple clinical trials over the last 20 years. Her current focus is on neuroprotective therapies and she heads up the neuroprotective site at the Parkinson Center of Oregon.
Ms. Carter has authored and co-authored 44 journal articles, 13 book chapters and 37 abstracts. She also co-authored A Handbook for People with Parkinson's Disease, which is an invaluable resource to those living with Parkinson's disease.
Harvey Checkoway, PhD (US) is a Professor of Environmental Health and Epidemiology at the University of Washington. His main areas of research and teaching are occupational and environmental risk factors for chronic diseases. Recent examples of research projects for which he has been or is principal investigator are studies of: silica, silicosis, and lung cancer among diatomaceous earth industry workers; semen quality among lead smelter workers; environmental and genetic risk factors for Parkinson's disease; parkinsonism in relation to pesticide exposures among orchardists; and cancer risks among textile workers in Shanghai. Dr. Checkoway teaches a course in Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology (ENVH/EPI 570). He is Director of the UW Superfund Basic Research Program Project (since 1998) and the Training Grant in Environmental and Molecular Epidemiology (since 1990), both funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Dr. Checkoway is first author of a textbook on occupational epidemiology, "Research Methods in Occupational Epidemiology", New York: Oxford University Press (1st edition1989, 2nd edition 2004), and has published over 140 papers in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.
Phillip G. Clark, ScD (U.S.) is Professor and Director of the Program in Gerontology and the Rhode Island Geriatric Education Center at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, Rhode Island, USA. He received his Doctorate in Public Health from Harvard University in 1979, and he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Ethics and Public Policy at Wesleyan University during 1980-81. He has been on the faculty at the University of Rhode Island since 1981; during 1988-89 he was Visiting Professor at the Universities of Guelph and Toronto in Canada. His research and program development interests include interdisciplinary teamwork and health professions education, comparative geriatric health care policy, health promotion with older adults, ethical issues in aging, narrative gerontology and clinical practice, and aging and developmental disabilities.
His scholarly work has been published in the Canadian Journal on Aging, The Gerontologist, Journal of Aging and Health, Ageing and Society, Educational Gerontology, Gerontology and Geriatrics Education, and the Journal of Interprofessional Care. He has served as Principal Investigator on funded research and program development grants from the National Institute on Aging, U.S. Administration on Aging, U.S. Bureau of Health Professions, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He is currently a Co-Investigator of an international research study funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Dr. Clark is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education. He is also a member of both the Advisory Board of the Institute of Aging and the Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues (ELSI) Advisory Committee for Canadian Lifelong Health Initiative (CLHI), Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Government of Canada.
Perry Cohen, PhD (US) is an active participant and leader on the national level in advocacy activities for Parkinson's issues. He is Project Director for the Parkinson Pipeline Project, which he initiated along with a program on Quality Access and Delivery of Parkinson's Care for the Parkinson's Disease Foundation. Perry's other major advocacy efforts have included, lobbying Congress and helping coordinate the activities of PD organizations working for passage of the Udall Bill; arranging a summit meeting with the NIH Director, White House Staff, and NINDS to establish collaboration with NIH; testifying before the US House of Representatives Appropriations Committee, testifying before a Medicare advisory committee on national coverage determination for DBS; and serving as a Delegate to the "Parkinson's Research Agenda" planning meeting. Perry also is a Patient Representative on the FDA's Deep Brain Stimulation Advisory Panel, and a liaison for PD to the Centers For Disease Control (CDC) and the Agency For Healthcare Research And Quality (AHRQ). Prior to being diagnosed with PD in May 1996, Perry worked as a planning and evaluation consultant in the health industry, working with NIH, employee health benefits, health insurance plans, medical groups, and academic research centers. Perry's community volunteer activities include serving on the boards of a large staff model HMO, a biomedical research unit of a multi-institutional health system, and a local healthcare foundation. He has authored and co-authored articles in peer review journals in the fields of health services management, public health, team development, and most recently in psychiatry and neurology on the co-morbidities and costs of PD. He has an MS and a Ph.D. in Organizational Development from MIT, Sloan School of Management; and a BS in Management Science and Math from Carnegie-Mellon University. Diagnosed 1996, Perry has participated as a research subject in numerous clinical and behavioral studies at NIH, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Maryland.
Ronald Allan Cole, PhD (U.S.) is the current Director and Founder of the Center for Spoken Language Research at the University of Colorado, and is a professor in Computer Science. During the past eight years, Dr. Cole has worked to stimulate and sustain international collaboration in computer science and engineering. In 1997, with Jose Fortes, Dr. Cole organized the NSF-sponsored Workshop on International Collaboration in Computer Science; the resulting report is at http://cslr.colorado.edu/mirror/nsf/wiccs97/report.html. Subsequently, he organized several NSF sponsored workshops, with Jose Fortes, Jaime Carbonnell and others, in the U.S., Argentina, Chile and Mexico, to promote international collaboration in computer science. Several of these workshops led to new projects, initiatives and programs. He also managed a two year project sponsored by the NSF and EU to survey the state of the art of the field of human language technology, which resulted in an edited volume with contributions from over 90 authors (http://cslu.cse.ogi.edu/HLTsurvey/).
Dr. Cole has received grants from NSF CISE international programs to conduct research collaborations in human language technology with colleagues in Brazil and Mexico and a grant from NSF INT to conduct research with colleagues in Chile. I am especially proud of an ongoing and highly productive ongoing collaboration with the Tlatoa speech group at the Universidad de las Americas in Cholula Mexico. Funding from this project was initiated from an NSF-CONACyT program, and has continued under an NSF ITR grant. Work under these projects helped establish the largest and most productive speech research lab in Latin America, which has produced state of the art Spanish speech recognition and text-to-speech synthesis technologies, and the deployment of a computer-based Spanish literacy program using these technologies that is now being tested in Mexican elementary schools.
During the summer of 2004, a grant from the NSF supported a one month workshop at CSLR attended by researchers from Italy, Chile, Mexico and France. These researchers worked together using research tools and technologies developed at CSLR to develop speech recognition and character animation technologies to enable conversational interaction with a lifelike computer character in Italian, French and Spanish. At the end of the month, each research team had developed an Interactive Book that teaches reading and comprehension to students in these languages through interaction with the virtual tutor. Information about the workshop can be found at http://cslr.colorado.edu/beginweb/2003summer_wkshp/.
Dr. Cole's current research is focused on development of virtual humans - lifelike computer characters that interact with people like expert teachers or therapists. Virtual humans invented at the CSLR are now being used to teach children to read and learn from text and to conduct speech therapy with individuals with Parkinson disease or aphasia. The Colorado Literacy Tutor project, (http://cslr.colorado.edu/beginweb/reading/reading.html) uses a virtual reading tutor that teachers young children to learn to read and learn from text. Our virtual speech therapy projects use a virtual speech therapist to treat individuals with Parkinson Disease and individuals with aphasia. (http://cslr.colorado.edu/beginweb/animated_speech_therapist/anim_therapist.html). The invention of virtual humans is an exciting new field of research. I recently organized an NSF sponsored workshop that brought together researchers from several disciplines in hopes of establishing a community that will plan research and development of virtual humans (http://cslr.colorado.edu/beginweb/2004animated_wkshp/).
Carlo Colosimo, MD (Italy) graduated from the Medical School of the Catholic University in Rome, Italy, on July 1985. Topic of the MD Thesis (with Honours): The use of bromocriptine in Parkinson's disease. After undertaking residency in neurology, he has been a post-doctoral research fellow in the same University Department. Since April 1993 he has been Ass. Professor of Neurology at the Department of Neurological Sciences, University of Rome La Sapienza, where he has been responsible for the management of patients admitted under his care to the general neurology ward: in addition, he has been in charge of the Semi-intensive Care Unit for stroke patients. During the past decade he has been involved in trials concerning both antiparkinsonian drugs (new dopamine agonists) and experimental therapeutic agents for acute ischemic stroke (thrombolitics and neuroprotective drugs). He has also contributed to the undergraduate (medical and physiotherapy students) and graduate (residents in neurology) teaching programme of the department.
Clinical research activity has been mainly focused on Parkinson's disease and movement disorders, with particular interest in: (a) use of subcutaneous infusions with dopaminergic agonists (apomorphine, lisuride) for the management of severe motor fluctuations in Parkinson's disease; (b) use of different serotypes of botulinum toxin for the management of focal dystonia (blepharospasm, torticollis, spasmodic dysphonia and writer's cramp) and hemifacial spasm; (c) genetic, epidemiological and clinical aspects of atypical parkinsonian syndromes (multiple system atrophy, Steele-Richardson-Olszewski syndrome, corticobasal degeneration, PD-dementia). He is author of 180 original scientific papers, 68 of which in peer-reviewed international journals, and editor of a successful textbook on movement disorders in Italian (2 editions). He also serves as a manuscript and book reviewer for several international journals and he is member of the editorial board of the journal Movement Disorders since 2004.
Amy L. Comstock, Esq., (U.S.) began as Executive Director of the Parkinson Action Network (PAN) on December 8, 2003. Prior to joining PAN, she served as the sixth Director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, having accepted the nomination to the Senate-confirmed position in 1999. Prior to her appointment to the Office of Government Ethics, Ms. Comstock was Associate Counsel to the President in the White House Counsel's Office. Ms. Comstock began her federal service as an attorney at the U.S. Department of Education in 1988; she ended her tenure there in 1998 as Assistant General Counsel for Ethics. Ms. Comstock began her professional career at the law firm of Beveridge & Diamond. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bard College and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Michigan.
Mark Cookson, PhD (US) received both his B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Salford, UK in 1991 and 1995, respectively. His postdoctoral studies included time spent at the Medical Research Council laboratories and at the University of Newcastle, Newcastle, UK. He joined the Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida, as an Assistant Professor in 2000 and moved to the National Institute on Aging at NIH Bethesda, MD in 2002. Within the Laboratory of Neurogenetics, Dr. Cookson's group works on movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease, attempting to understand mechanisms leading to neuronal damage. The group uses cellular and molecular biology techniques to model how the effects of mutations in genes associated with familial forms of PD (alpha-synuclein, parkin, DJ-1, PINK1 and dardarin) affect protein function. Dr Cookson has published over 50 original papers and several review articles. He is currently a member of the editorial board for Neurobiology of Disease and of the scientific advisory board of the Michael J Fox Foundation.
Anna Członkowska, MD, PhD ( Poland) is Professor and Head of the Second Department of Neurology in the Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology in Warsaw. She graduated from the Warsaw Medical Academy in 1966 and, following training in neurology at the Warsaw Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology, obtained her MD in 1971 defending the thesis “The study of Hemolysis in Wilson’s Disease”. Prof. Członkowska was awarded a British Council of neuroimmunology grant in 1972. She was a Neurobiology Fellow in the Department of Experimental Neuropathology of the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, visiting professor of neuroimmunology in the Department of Neurology, University of Chicago, Illinois, and visiting scientist in the Department of Neuroimmunology, Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry Martinsried, Germany. Prof. Członkowska serves on the boards of various European Neurologic societies and was also President of the Polish Society of Neurology. She is married and has two sons. Her main interests concern stroke, neuroimmunology and Wilson’s disease.
Ted M. Dawson, MD, PhD (US) is the Leonard Madlyn Professor of Neurodegenerative Diseases in the Departments of Neurology and Neuroscience and the Graduate Program in Cellular & Molecular and the Institute for Cell Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is the Director of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine's Morris K. Udall Parkinson's Disease Research Center of Excellence and Director of the Neuroregeneration and Repair Program in the Institute for Cell Engineering. Dr. Dawson is world-renowned for his novel contributions on the role of nitric oxide in neuronal injury. He has published over 300 full-length manuscripts and review articles. He is one of the top five cited Neuroscientists in the last decade (see http://www.sciencewatch.com/jan-feb2001/index.html). He has a strong background in neuroanatomy, pharmacology, molecular biology, protein biochemistry, and the use of in vivo and in vitro model systems to study pathogenic mechanisms. Dr. Dawson has won several awards including the Derek Denny-Brown Young Neurological Scholar Award, the Paul Beeson Physician Faculty Scholar Award, the Santiago Grisolia Medal (2001). He was honored in 2000 with the ISI Highly Cited Researcher Award. Many advances in neurobiology of disease have stemmed from Dr. Dawson's identification of the mechanisms of neuronal cell death and the elucidation of the molecular mechanisms of neurodegeneration. He pioneered the role of nitric oxide in neuronal injury in stroke and excitotoxicity and elucidated the molecular mechanisms by which nitric oxide and poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase kills neurons. His studies of nitric oxide led to major insights into the neurotransmitter functions of this gaseous messenger molecule. He co-discovered the neurotrophic properties of non-immunosuppressant immunophilin ligands. Dr. Dawson's discoveries have led to innovative approaches and enhanced the development of new agents to treat neurologic disorders, such as Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. Due to Dr. Dawson's interest and expertise in PD he was asked to serve on the Program committee.
Valina L. Dawson, PhD (US) is Director of the Nerve Regeneration and Repair Program in the Institute of Cell Engineering, Professor and Vice Chair in Neurology, and Professor in Neuroscience and Physiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She earned her bachelors degree at the University of California at Davis in Environmental Toxicology and her Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Utah Medical School. She trained at the University of Pennsylvania and then at the National Institute for Drug Abuse before joining the faculty at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1994.
Her research is focused on exploring cell death and cell survival pathways resulting in 200 publications. She was recently recognized by the ISI as one of the top 100 cited Neuroscientists in the last decade. In studying ischemic (loss of glucose and oxygen) and excitotoxic injury she has identified several novel signaling molecules including nitric oxide mediation of neurotoxicity; activation of PARP by neurotoxic NO production; and mitochondrial release of apoptosis inducing factor, in the integration of the excitotoxic death signal. Her lab is also investigating the gene mutations linked to Parkinson's disease with a focus on Parkin, DJ-1, PINK1 and LRRK2. Using genetically engineered mice, biochemistry, cell biology and animal behavior she is investigating how mutations in these genes lead to dopaminergic neuronal cell loss. She also has undertaken a gene discovery project to understand which proteins are responsible for mediating the profound protection afforded to the brain by the phenomena of ‘preconditioning'. Identification of survival pathways will hopefully open up new therapeutic opportunities. The ultimate goal of the on-going research is to apply the strategies and techniques identified and refined in the basic science laboratory to clinical treatment of neurologic disorders.
Justo García de Yebenes, MD (Spain) was born in Toledo, Spain in 1947. In 1969 he became graduated in Philosophy at the University of Navarra, in 1970, in Medicine at Universidad Complutense of Madrid, and in 1978 became a Doctor in Medicine at Autonomous University in Barcelona. He trained in Neurology at Fundación Jiménez Diaz, Madrid, and at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. He got additional training in Neuropharmacology, with Prof Arvid Carlsson, University of Gothemburg, from 1976 to 1977 and at Columbia University, with Prof. Stanley Fahn, from 1985-1987.
He has served as Assistant Neurologist, at Hospital de S. Pau, Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona from 1974 to 1996, as Head of Movement Disorders Unit, Hospital Ramón y Cajal, Madrid, from 1977 to 1989, as Professor and Chairman of Neurology, Fundación Jimenez Díaz, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, from 1989 to 2005 and is now returning to Hospital Ramon y Cajal, Madrid, as the Head of the Neurodegenerative Disorders Unit. He is also continues as the President of the Fundación para Investigaciones Neurológicas and of the Banco de Tejidos para Investigaciones Neurológicas of Madrid.
Prof Yebenes has been Visiting Professor at the University of London, 1994, and at Columbia, 1995-1996, Chair of the Education Committee, Spanish Neurological Society, 1992-1993, Chair of the Neuropharmacology-Neurochemistry Group 1998-1999, President Elect and Chair of the Scientific Affairs Committee 2000-2001, President of the Spanish Neurological Society, 2002-2003. He has been awarded with the nacional prize of Medicine, King Jaime I, in year 2000, and with the medal of health of Castilla-La Mancha in 2003 as well as other scientific prizes. He has written more than 200 papers in peer reviewed journal as well as several articles in general newspapers, and books on medical topics as well as a book of fiction. He is actually member of several government sponsored councils and committees and member of the Board of Directors of the European HD network.
Mahlon R. Delong, MD (US) is the William Timmie Professor of Neurology and Director of the newly created Emory Neuroscience Center; Dr. DeLong was Chairman of the Department of Neurology at Emory University School of Medicine from 1990-2003. He now directs the Emory Comprehensive Neuroscience Center. Dr. DeLong has played a major role in clarifying the functional organization of the basal ganglia and the role of these structures in the pathophysiology of movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease. He and his colleagues proposed the now widely accepted concept of functionally segregated basal ganglia-thalamocortical circuits, which has helped to clarify the diverse role of the basal ganglia in motor, cognitive and emotional functions. He carried out important studies in primate models of Parkinson's and other movement disorders that have provided fundamental insight into the underlying mechanisms of these disorders and led to the discovery of new surgical targets. His studies helped to renew interest in new surgical approaches to treatment of movement disorders. Dr. DeLong and his colleagues have carried out major clinical trials of pallidotomy and deep brain stimulation for Parkinson's disease.
Among numerous awards, Dr. DeLong received a Javitz Neuroscience Investigator Award from the NINDS for his research, and the Alfred E. Springer Award by the APDA and was elected to membership in the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. DeLong is Chair of the Society for Neuroscience, Government and Public Affairs Committee. He served on the Advisory Council of the NINDS from 1996-2000. He serves on the Editorial Board of several scientific journals and government and private foundation advisory panels. He is also the Scientific Director of the Dystonia Medical Research Foundation and is on the Scientific Advisory Board of the APDA. Health America has recognized Dr. DeLong as one of the Top Doctors in neurology for the treatment of movement disorders.
Ariel Y. Deutch, MD (US) is Professor of Psychiatry and Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. His broad interests focus on the involvement of central dopamine systems in neuropsychiatric conditions. His major current research efforts revolve around a center that he directs that examines the mechanisms of dendritic plasticity in striatal neurons in Parkinson's disease. Other areas of investigation include novel neuroproteomics (mass spectrometric imaging) studies of the subthalamic nucleus in Parkinson's disease, interactions of dopamine and orexin in the regulation of frontal cortical function, and environmental modification of disease progression in Parkinson's disease. Dr. Deutch is a member of the Scientific Council of NARSAD. In addition to his research activities, Dr. Deutch is involved in teaching and training at both the graduate student and resident level. Because Dr. Deutch is the chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the National Parkinson Foundation, he was asked to serve on the Steering Committee.
Alessando DiRocco, MD (US) graduated from the University of Genova, Italy, and then completed his residency in Neurology and a fellowship in Movement Disorders and geriatric neurology with Dr. Melvin D. Yahr and Dr. Warren Olanow at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. He is currently Associate Professor of Neurology at Albert Einstein College. Dr. Di Rocco's clinical activity in Parkinson's disease emphasizes the team approach and he has been active in promoting the care of Parkinson's disease in minority and underserved populations and has pioneered programs for family caregivers attending patients with Parkinson's disease. He is involved in a number of clinical research projects, and his research interest is in the role of trans-methylation in Parkinson's disease and other neurological disorders. He is currently the Principal Investigator of an NIH-funded study on depression and Parkinson's disease that includes a comparative trial with two antidepressants and an investigational part on the role of homocysteine and other metabolites of the methylation pathway in depression and cognitive abnormalities associated with Parkinson's disease. He is a member of several public and private panels and commissions, and has been recently appointed by the World Federation of Neurology Research Committee on Parkinsonism and Related Disorders to lead an effort to study Parkinson's disease in developing countries.
Richard Dodel, MD (Germany) he is a consultant neurologist and private lecturer at the Department of Neurology, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-University Bonn, Germany. He is an expert in the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders including Parkinson's disease. His scientific interests focus on basic research (mechanisms of neurodegeneration and plaque deposition). One major interest is concerned with the development of experimental treatment strategies for neurodegenerative disorders. Along with clinical clinical studies he is also concerned with the evaluation of healthcare utilization and health-related quality of life in neurologic disorders.
Theresa J. K. Drinka, Ph.D., MSSW, LCSW (US) earned bachelors and masters degrees in Social Work and a Ph.D. in Continuing Education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Drinka spent 20 years at the University of Wisconsin and the Department of Veterans Affairs developing and administering interdisciplinary clinical programs, teaching interdisciplinary teamwork, and performing clinical research. In 1982 she became Director of Interdisciplinary Team Training and in 1990 she became associate director for Education and Evaluation in the Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center. In 1996 Dr. Drinka established a consulting and training business through which she conducts human systems analysis and team development. Dr. Drinka has been instrumental in developing numerous clinical assessment, training, and team evaluation methodologies including the ALSAR-R, a tool to evaluate instrumental activities of daily living and the Team Signatures®, a technology to help consultants evaluate the system dynamics of teams. In 1987 Dr. Drinka was awarded the first national Leadership VA Alumni Association's Annual Exemplary Service Award for excellence in leadership and program development. In 1997 Dr. Drinka received the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education Distinguished Teacher Certificate for contributions to interdisciplinary education and in 2000 she was awarded a lifetime achievement award by the National Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies, Louisville, Kentucky. Dr. Drinka serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Interprofessional Care and in addition to co-authoring the book, Health Care Teamwork, has published articles and book chapters on self-directed work teams, interdisciplinary health care teams, and patient assessment instruments.
Joyce S. Dubensky, Esq. (USA) is the Executive Director of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, a non-sectarian group that addresses unresolved tensions through practical programs that help change behaviors in religiously-diverse workplaces, schools and in areas of armed conflict. As the first Executive Director of the Tanenbaum Center, Ms. Dubensky has led the organization in a period of substantial growth. Since her arrival in April 2002, the organization’s programs, operating budget and staff have more than doubled in size.
Learning how to ask the right questions and how to incorporate religious beliefs into a patient’s treatment plan can make a difference in that person’s health. But most healthcare providers do not know how to do this. The Tanenbaum Center therefore created the Religious Diversity in Healthcare initiative, which trains providers on how to respectfully address the sensitive religious issues that often arise but are unnoticed in healthcare settings. Ms. Dubensky has provided in-depth training for hundreds of healthcare practitioners across the country, most recently at the invitation of Kaiser Permanente, the Center to Promote Health Care Studies, the National Arab-American Medical Association of New York and the American College of Physicians-New York.
Ms. Dubensky holds her J.D. from New York University School of Law, where she graduated with honors, and has a Master’s degree in American History (with an emphasis on Minority Studies) from Adelphi University. Currently, she serves on the Board of Advisors for the Center Against Violence in the Family.
David Eidelberg, MD (US) is a graduate of Harvard Medical School. Having done his residency in neurology at the Harvard-Longwood Area training program, Dr. Eidelberg pursued post-doctoral training in magnetic resonance research at the National Hospital, Queen Square, London. He did additional training in positron emission tomography (PET) at Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Since 1988, Dr. Eidelberg has served as Director of the Movement Disorders Center and the Functional Brain Imaging Laboratory at North Shore University Hospital. In 1997, he was promoted to the rank of Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery at New York University (NYU) School of Medicine and in 2000 became the Director of the Center for Neurosciences at the Institute for Medical Research of the North Shore-Long Island Jewish (NS-LIJ) Health System. In 2005, Dr. Eidelberg was named the Feinstein Professor of Neurology at NYU and Vice Chairman of the Department of Medicine at NS-LIJ.
He has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards from the National Institutes of Health and other funding sources. Dr. Eidelberg is internationally recognized for his work in clinical neurosciences and brain imaging, having delivered over 150 invited lectures in North America, Europe, and Asia over the past five years. He is the author or co-author of over 300 scientific publications and serves on the editorial boards of Neurology (1995-2001), Movement Disorders (1999-2003), Journal of Nuclear Medicine (1999-Present), Current Opinion in Neurology (2001-2004), and Clinical Neuroscience Research (2004-Present)
Dr. Eidelberg's current research interests include using neuroimaging techniques to study of disease mechanisms in Parkinson's disease (PD) and related movement disorders. A major contribution of his work has been the development of an integrated approach utilizing in vivo radiotracer measurements, network quantification, and behavioral psychophysics as a means of determining changes in functional brain circuitry during novel therapies for PD.
Mr. Robin Elliott (US) has been executive director of the Parkinson's Disease Foundation, Inc. since October 1996. Active in development, communications and not-for-profit management in New York City for more than 30 years, he has served variously as vice president for development and external affairs at Teachers College, Columbia University (1988-95) and (with the same title) at Hunter College, The City University of New York (1982-88); as deputy to the Chancellor for University Relations at the City University of New York (1979-82); and as director of information and education at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (1971-79).
Mr. Elliott grew up in southern England and received his formal education at Bradfield (a preparatory school; 1954-59); Magdalen College, Oxford University (B.A. in philosophy, politics and economics, 1962); and Columbia University (M.A. in American Government and Politics, 1965). He is active in reproductive health and rights (as member of the board of directors of Washington-based Advocates for Youth, an organization he co-founded in 1980) and serves also on the boards of directors of the St. Cecilia Chorus (an oratorio group, to which he contributes a lusty bass-baritone), and Community Health Charities (on both national and New York State levels).
Murat Emre, PhD (Turkey) studied medicine at the Istanbul Faculty of Medicine he was trained in neuroscience and clinical neurology at the University of Zürich. He then worked in the fields of neurorehabilitation and clinical research in Switzerland for several years. He trained in movement disorders with Prof. David Marsden at the Queen Square National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, London and in behavioral neurology with Prof. Marsel Mesulam at the Beth Israel Hospital and Harvard Medical School. In 1996 he was assigned as Professor of Neurology at the Istanbul Faculty of Medicine where he started the Behavioral Neurology and Movement Disorders Unit, which he has been chairing since then. His research interests are in Parkinson's disease and related disorders, in particular cognitive aspects of the disease, Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.
Stewart Factor, DO (US) is currently Professor of Neurology and Director of the Movement Disorders program at Emory University School of Medicine. He is currently a member of the American Academy of Neurology, American Neurological Association, Movement Disorder Society, Parkinson Study Group, Huntington Study Group, and the Dystonia Study Group. Dr. Factor earned his undergraduate degree in Biology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and his DO in Medicine at New York College of Osteopathic Medicine at Old Westbury.
Sheree Loftus Fader, MA (US) is an advanced practice nurse, certified in gerontology by the American Nurses Association and in physical rehabilitation by the Association of Rehabilitation Nurses. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Biology and Nursing at Worcester State College and a Master of Science in Nursing at Anna Maria College in Paxton, MA. She completed the Consortium in Gerontology Studies Program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and continued her education at Cornell Medical College in New York City, obtaining certification as a gerontological nurse practitioner. Ms. Loftus is recognized as a Parkinson disease educator, author and researcher. She has worked for the Parkinson Disease Foundation, the American Parkinson Disease Association and the National Parkinson Foundation. She served as an investigator in the DATATOP and Pallidotomy studies. Ms. Loftus also developed the consortium for complementary and alternative medicine for Parkinson's (CCAMP). She has lectured extensively nationally and internationally, and has published articles on complementary care for Parkinson's, and a wide variety of Parkinson care related topics.
Ms. Loftus is currently coordinator for community outreach and Parkinson support groups in New York City.
Stanley Fahn, MD (US) (Chair, Steering Committee) is the H. Houston Merritt Professor of Neurology and Director of the Center for Parkinson's Disease and Other Movement Disorders at Columbia University Medical Center. He currently is the immediate Past-President of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN). He founded the Movement Disorder Society and served as the Chairman of its Steering Committee. After its constitution was approved, he was elected its first president. The Movement Disorder Society, an international organization of professionals active in this subspecialty; has honored him by naming one of the two principal lectureships at its annual International Congresses after him. He was the founding co editor of the journal Movement Disorders, and served in this capacity for the first 10 years of the journal's existence, until 1996. He has also served as Associate Editor of Neurology for 10 years. Dr. Fahn has twice served as Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs for the Food and Drug Administration. He currently serves on an NIH Oversight Committee to review and give advice on clinical trials on neuroprotection for PD. Dr. Fahn and his scientific colleagues at Columbia University were awarded a Morris K. Udall Parkinson's Disease Research Center of Excellence by the National Institutes of Health in 1999, and it is currently ongoing.
Dr. Fahn organized and executed the development of the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) and modified and popularized the use of the Schwab England ADL score for global severity of this disease. Both of these rating scores are used world wide, the former to determine the severity of PD, and the latter as a measure of quality of life. He has participated in many clinical trials of a variety of pharmacotherapeutic agents for PD. Along with Dr. Ira Shoulson, Dr. Fahn was a co founder of the Parkinson Study Group (PSG), a consortium of clinical investigators dedicated to conduct controlled clinical trials on the prevention and treatment of Parkinson's disease.
Dr. Fahn has received numerous honors and delivered many titled lectures at a variety of universities around the world. The American Academy of Neurology honored him with the Wartenberg Award for outstanding clinical research in 1986, the First Movement Disorder Prize for outstanding contributions in this field in 1997, and their A. B. Baker Award for outstanding educator in neurology in 1996. The American Neurological Association awarded him the First Soriano Lectureship for excellence in research; the American Parkinson Disease Association, their Fred Springer Prize; and the Blepharospasm Association enrolled him in their Hall Of Fame. NIH selected Dr. Fahn to deliver the 2000 Neurodegeneration Lecture. He received the Srinivasan Award in Chennai, India, in February 2002. In October 2002 he was elected a member of the Institute of Medicine of the U.S. National Academies. In November 2002, he was elected an Honorary Member of the Movement Disorder Society. In October 2003, he was elected an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Neurology. Dr. Fahn has been elected an Honorary Member of several foreign neurological societies: Associacion Colombiana de Neurologia, 1986; Sociedad Espańol de Neurologia, 1987; "Membre d'honneur ŕ titre étranger" (Foreign Honorary Member) of the Société Française de Neurologie (French Neurological Society), 2002.
Sierra Farris, MPAS, PA-C (US) is a certified Physician Assistant specialized in Movement Disorders. She completed her medical training at State University of New York at Stony Brook earning her second Bachelor of Science degree. She obtained a Master's in Clinical Neurology from the University of Nebraska and completed a six-month Movement Disorders internship with Dr. Monique Giroux. Sierra has specialized in the clinical care, deep brain stimulation programming and rehabilitation for Parkinson's disease since 2000. Sierra has developed several educational tools for Parkinson's disease including internet distance learning programs and conducted seminars for the community and health care professionals working in in-patient, out-patient and long term care settings. In addition, she served on the board of directors for the Washington chapter of the American Parkinson's Disease Association. Sierra recently founded the Neuroscience Alliance for Physician Assistants that was granted acceptance as a special interest group for her national association.
Sierra has a wide scope of medical training and experience in other highly specialized areas including cancer, psychiatry and emergency medicine. Prior to PA training, Sierra earned her first Bachelor of Science degree in Clinical Laboratory Science and practiced as a Clinical Laboratory Scientist and instructor at the University of Louisville. She has also completed certification for Health Fitness Instructor from the American College of Sports Medicine with six years experience as a Wellness Director.
Mel B. Feany, M.D., PhD (US) Assistant Professor of Pathology, Harvard Medical School, studies Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease using the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Dr. Feany received her undergraduate degree at Harvard College. She completed Ph.D. training in neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, and medical training at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. After residency training in pathology and fellowship training in neuropathology at Brigham and Women's Hospital, she joined the faculty and currently directs a laboratory in the Department of Pathology, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Feany's laboratory models human neurodegenerative diseases in Drosophila. Her laboratory has described fly models of Parkinson's disease and tau-related disorders, including Alzheimer's disease. The Feany laboratory is currently using Drosophila genetics to identify new genes and proteins involved in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease and the tauopathies.
Howard J. Federoff, MD, PhD (US) received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. Following clinical training in Internal Medicine and Endocrinology and a post-doctoral fellowship in molecular neurobiology at Harvard Medical School's Massachusetts General Hospital he joined the faculty of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. In 1995, Dr. Federoff founded the Division of Molecular Medicine and Gene Therapy in the Department of Neurology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine. In 1997, he was appointed Director of the University's Neuroscience Program. In 2002, he was appointed Senior Associate Dean for Basic Research. Dr. Federoff has helped to create the field of CNS gene therapy and his own group places particular emphasis on treatments for neurodegenerative diseases. He formed and leads the national consortium "The Parkinson's Disease Gene Therapy Study Group" whose mission is to establish a rigorous basis for moving novel gene therapeutics from preclinical studies to clinical trials. He serves on four editorial boards, has chaired NIH Study Section BDCN 3 and is a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors of NIDCR.
Lynn Friss Feinberg, MSW (US) ) is Deputy Director of the National Center on Caregiving at the San Francisco-based Family Caregiver Alliance. The Center works to advance the development of high-quality, cost-effective policies and programs for caregivers in every state in the country. Currently, she directs the National Consensus Project for Caregiver Assessment, funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Archstone Foundation and the California Endowment.
Between 2002 – 2004, she was the project director for the first 50-state survey of family caregiving programs in the U.S., funded by the U.S. Administration on Aging. In recent years, her research has also focused on choice and decision-making for persons with cognitive impairment and their family caregivers. She now serves as co-investigator for a longitudinal study, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, to develop interventions for caregiver mental health.
Prior to 2001, Ms. Feinberg was FCA's Director of Research and Information Programs where she managed the agency's research, policy development, information clearinghouse and technical assistance programs. She also directed the "Statewide Resources Consultant” contract with the California Department of Mental Health to coordinate the cross-site replication of FCA's model family support program through a statewide system of 11 non-profit Caregiver Resource Centers in California. Previous positions included serving as area agency on aging planner and evaluator, and conducting aging policy research at the University of California, San Francisco.
She is the author or co-author of over 40 publications and has served on numerous national advisory committees and expert panels to address caregiving and long-term care issues. Ms. Feinberg has lectured widely on family caregiving, long-term care systems development, and the interface of research and practice. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Society on Aging (ASA), and a member of ASA's Generations Editorial Board. Ms. Feinberg holds a master's degree in social welfare and gerontology from the University of California at Berkeley.
Stephen Ferrando, MD (US) is Professor and Director of the Division of Psychosomatic Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Weill Medical College of Cornell University. He attended Northwestern University Medical School, did his psychiatry residency training at the University of California, San Francisco and subsequently did an NIMH-funded HIV/AIDS research training fellowship at Cornell. He has focused his research on the neuropsychiatric and quality of life aspects of chronic illnesses as Parkinson's Disease and HIV/AIDS. He has authored over 50 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, is a peer-reviewer for multiple journals that span medical specialties, and is active in local and national organizations involved with psychosomatic medicine and neuropsychiatry.
H. Christian Fibiger, PhD (US) is Vice President and Global Head of Neuroscience at Amgen. He is responsible for Amgen's worldwide Neuroscience discovery efforts ranging from early exploratory research through clinical candidate selection. He is also responsible for evaluating and implementing collaborate efforts, external alliances and licensing agreements in Neuroscience with biotechnology companies and academic institutions.
Dr. Fibiger received his B.Sc. in Chemistry and Psychology from the University of Victoria in 1966 and his Ph.D. in Physiological Psychology from Princeton University in 1970.
Prior to joining Amgen in 2003, Dr. Fibiger served as Vice President of Neuroscience Discovery Research and Clinical Investigation, and LRL Europe at Eli Lilly and Company. Before moving to Lilly in 1998, Dr. Fibiger served as Professor and Head of the Division of Neurological Sciences at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He has made major contributions to neuroscience research and is among the top 100 most cited scientists in neuroscience. He is a Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP). He has received numerous honors for his research contributions, including the Clark Institute Prize in Psychiatry, the Heinz Lehmann Award of the Canadian College of Neuropsychopharmacology, the Killam Research Prize, the Gold Medal in Health Sciences from the Science Council of British Columbia and the Tanenbaum Distinguished Scientist Award in Schizophrenia Research.
Dr. Fibiger serves on the editorial boards of ten journals in the field of neuroscience and has been coeditor of Neuropsychopharmacology, the official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. He has authored or coauthored more than 400 scientific papers focused mainly on the neurobiological substrates of Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, depression and drug abuse. Dr. Fibiger has served on numerous national and international scientific advisory boards including the National Institute of Mental Health (USA), the Canadian Psychiatric Research Foundation (Canada), the Medical Research Council (Canada), the Human Frontiers Science Program (International), and the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Affective Disorders (USA).
Leslie Findley, PhD (UK) Since 1981 Professor Findley has been consultant neurologist at the Essex Neurosciences Unit, Old Church Hospital and is currently Chairman of the Neurosciences Board. He is Professor of Health Sciences (Neurology) at London University - South Bank.
He was Chairman of the Parkinson's Disease Society of the United Kingdom from 1995 to 1998 and is currently an Honorary Vice President. He is Chairman of the Board of Trustees, the National Tremor Foundation and Clinical Director of the National ME Centre and a member of the WHO Working Group on Parkinson's disease. His clinical research interests include movement disorders and fatigue syndromes.
Beth Fisher PhD, PT (US) is a Research Assistant Professor in the department of Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy at the University of Southern California. Her research interests include the study of brain-behavior relationships with an emphasis on designing intervention to promote neuroplasticity and behavioral recovery in individuals with central nervous system pathology including stroke and Parkinson's disease (PD). Currently she is conducting a clinical trial to determine whether task-specific, high-intensity locomotor training using BWSTT modulates disease progression and retards the development of specific motor deficits in individuals with early-stage Parkinson's disease. Disease progression and motor dysfunction are being assessed using an array of traditional outcome measures, such as UPDRS and timed functional tasks, as well as analysis of changes in motor control, using biomechanical analysis and behavioral testing. Analysis of the underlying movement patterns and motor control processes that are associated with changes in broad functional measures allow us to infer whether the exercise intervention is promoting true neuroplasticity (or neuroprotection) or whether the changes result merely from peripheral adaptations or learned substitutions. In addition, the feasibility of using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to quantify the alterations in cortico-motor circuitry (neuroplasticity) is being assessed. The impetus for this human trial came from her post-doctoral training in which she studied exercise-induced neuroplasticity and recovery in the MPTP-lesioned mouse. The potential benefit of exercise in promoting functional recovery through mechanisms of neuroplasticity in the injured basal ganglia was tested. The results of this work indicated that exercise facilitates behavioral recovery in the injured basal ganglia in part by altering the pattern of expression of the dopamine transporter involved in dopamine neurotransmission.
Tatiana Foroud, PhD (US) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics at Indiana University School of Medicine. Dr. Foroud's primary research interest is in the identification of genes that contribute to the risk for late onset, neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Foroud is the principal investigator of the NINDS funded Parkinson's Research: The Organized Genetics Initiative (PROGENI) study, which seeks to identify the genes underlying familial Parkinson's disease. In addition, she is also the principal investigator of the NIA funded cooperative agreement entitled the National Cell Repository for Alzheimer's Disease, which maintains biological specimens and clinical data from families with Alzheimer's disease and other related familial dementias. Dr. Foroud has published over 100 research papers, including a number in the area of the genetics of Parkinson's disease.
Cynthia Fox, Ph.D., CCC-SLP (USA) received her doctoral degree at the University of Arizona - Tucson, and her master's degree from the University of Colorado-Boulder in communication disorders. Dr. Fox is a Research Associate at the National Center for Voice and Speech (NCVS), a division of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and Executive Vice President of the LSVT(r) Foundation (a non-profit organization). Dr. Fox is considered among the world's experts in administration of LSVT. Her training included a focus in the areas of neuroscience and motor control and in 2002 she received the "Outstanding Teaching by a Teaching Assistant Award" from the College of Medicine at the University of Arizona for her work in the Human Neuroscience course. As part of the LSVT(r) clinical research team, she functions as a clinician, researcher, writer and workshop faculty.
Colonel Karl E. Friedl, PhD (US) Medical Service Corps, holds a Ph.D. in Physiology from the University of California at Santa Barbara. His early research on steroid hormones and responses to military stressors at the Department of Clinical Investigation, Madigan Army Medical Center, in Tacoma, Washington, was followed by research on body composition and nutrition at the United States Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, in Natick, Massachusetts. Beginning in 1993, he served as a staff officer in the Army Systems Hazards Research Program, eventually becoming the Research Area Director (RAD) for the Military Operational Medicine (MOM) Research Program, at the United States Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, Fort Detrick, Maryland. As the RAD, he established a coordinated plan of biomedical research on protection and enhanc