I am Professor of Neuromuscular Diseases at Newcastle University, interested in Translational Research in muscle diseases.
Dr Teresinha Evangelista is a Board certified neurologist and neuropathologist with long standing clinical and research expertise in neuromuscular disorders. Dr Teresinha Evangelista worked as a Consultant Neurologist at the Neurosciences Department of the Hospital de Santa Maria in Lisbon; she was a member of the Neuromuscular Research Unit at the Institute of Molecular Medicine as well as being an Invited Lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Lisbon. From 2013 - 2018 she worked at the John Walton Muscular Dystrophy Research Centre (JWMDRC) in Newcastle. During these years, she developed an interest on Rare Diseases policies. She is the coordinator of the European Reference Network for rare neuromuscular diseases EURO-NMD since 2018. She has worked since 2018 at the Unité de Morphologie Neuromusculaire; Institut de Myologie - Sorbonne Université, GHU Pitié-Salpêtrière and is now the lead of the Unit.
Dr. A. Reghan Foley is a Senior Research Physician within the Neuromuscular and Neurogenetic Disorders of Childhood Section, NINDS, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA. She sees genetically undiagnosed patients with congenital onset neuromuscular conditions and follows children with congenital myopathies and congenital muscular dystrophies via various natural history studies. Dr. Foley has served as an investigator for Phase 1 clinical trials in the COL6-related dystrophies, LAMA2-related dystrophies, MTM1-related myopathy, and giant axonal neuropathy. She has been involved in gene discovery efforts in congenital and childhood neuromuscular disorders, via the UK10K Consortium and via a collaboration with the Broad Institute’s Center for Mendelian Genomics.
Melony is a Physiotherapist on the Paediatric Neuromotor Team at Stan Cassidy Centre for Rehabilitation, New Brunswick, Canada
Pascal Laforêt, MD, PhD, is a professor of Neurology at the Versailles-Saint Quentin University, a consultant specialized in neuromuscular disorders (myasthenia gravis, muscular dystrophies, and metabolic myopathies) in the Neurology department of Raymond-Poincaré hospital, and coordinator of North/East/Ile de France neuromuscular center and FHU Phenix dedicated to translational research in neuromuscular disorders. He is affiliated to U1179 INSERM-UVSQ laboratory, dedicated to biotherapies of neuromuscular system diseases. Major focus of his research activities are metabolic myopathies (pathophysiology and clinical trials), and he coordinates the French registries for mitochondrial disorders, glycogenosis type III, and Pompe disease. He is a member of the French Myology Society (SFM), French Society of Inherited Metabolic Disorders (SFEIM), and boards of the French Glycogenosis Association (AFG) and Garches Fundation.
Kimbly Morgan BScPT, MScRRPT is a physiotherapist with the Respirology Service at IWK Health and a lecturer at the School of Physiotherapy, Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She is part of a multi-disciplinary team that provides care to infants, children, and youth with respiratory conditions. Her areas of interest include: airway clearance, disordered breathing, respiratory assessment and outcome measures.
Dr. Ichizo Nishino is Director of Department of Neuromuscular Research, National Institute of Neuroscience (NIN), National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry (NCNP). He obtained his M.D. in 1989 and Ph.D. in 1998 from Kyoto University. After 5 years of post-doctoral training, including 2 years at Columbia University, he was appointed to his current position in 2001. By now, he has published more than 600 PubMed-listed papers in the field. His laboratory functions as a nationwide referral center for muscle disease, providing diagnostic analyses for muscle pathology and genetic diagnosis. His lab receives around 80% of muscle biopsies performed in Japan (1103 cases in 2021) and he signs out all cases. As a result, more than 22,000 frozen muscle biopsy samples have been accumulated in his muscle repository, which is one of the largest collections of the patient’s muscles. Currently, Dr. Nishino is a Visiting/Guest Professor at 4 universities: University of Yamanashi, Kaohsiung Medical University (Taiwan), Peking University (China) and Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University (Thailand). He is also serving as Vice President of Asian-Oceanian Myology Center and Executive Board member in several societies including World Muscle Society. He is a corresponding Fellow of American Academy of Neurology (FAAN) and American Neurological Association (FANA).
Senior professor at the University of Gothenburg and consultant pathologist at the Sahlgrenska University Hospital
Carola Hedberg-Oldfors has a PhD in genetics and she is now working as a principal Molecular biologist/Geneticist at the department of Pathology and Genetics, University of Gothenburg and at Clinical Genetics and Genomics at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Sweden. Her main focus in clinical practise as well as research is genetic analysis and molecular biology in neuromuscular diseases.
Professor Jackie Palace is a consultant neurologist in Oxford and Professor in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Oxford University. She runs a national service for neuromyelitis optica service (NMO) and congenital myasthenic syndromes (CMS). Her clinical and research interests covers CMS, NMOSD, MOGAD, MS, and myasthenia gravis and include clinical treatment trials, immunological studies, pathology, biomarkers, genetics and imaging studies. She has been a UK lead for the National Risk Sharing Scheme which assessed the long-term effectiveness for disease modifying agents in multiple sclerosis, is a board member for the European Charcot Foundation, and on the steering committee for MAGNIMS.
Kara is an occupational therapist working at the Stan Cassidy Centre for Rehabilitation; the tertiary rehab centre in New Brunswick, Canada. She has been the occupational therapist with the Paediatric team neuromuscular clinic since 1999.
Professor Dr. Benedikt Schoser is a trained neurologist, neurophysiologist, neurointensivist, palliative medicine doctor, and muscle pathologist. He is a professor of neurology, senior consultant neurologist and co-chair of the Friedrich-Baur-Institute, Dep. of Neurology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Germany. He is executive section editor of the journal Neuromuscular Disorders, member of the editorial board of current opinions in neurology, and the European Journal of Neurology. He became fellow of the EAN in 2017 and serves as board member of the Educational panel, rare disease panel, and scientific muscle and neuromuscular panel of the EAN. Professor Schoser is co-chair of the joint educational board of the EAN/UEMS and organizer of the European neurology board exam. He is a long-term member of the World Muscle Society and organises the WMS teaching course. Professor Schoser’s special interests are multisystemic neuromuscular disorders, translational research, and therapy.
Dr Sheriko is a pediatric rehabilitation medicine physician at IWK Health and assistant professor of pediatrics and medicine at Dalhousie University.
Emeritus Professor of Neurology. Executive Board and Programme Committee member WMS
Prof. John Vissing is professor of neurology at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and Director of the Copenhagen Neuromuscular Center at the National Hospital. Main research interests are metabolic myopathies, myasthenia gravis, channelopathies, muscle MRI, rehabilitation and defining outcome measures for muscle diseases. He has authored more than 450 scientific papers.
