| Scientific & Medical Advisory Committee CADASIL Together We Have Hope is honored to have a Scientific Medical Advisory Committee comprised of respected practitioners, researchers, and leading experts who are knowledgeable about CADASIL and similar disorders. This international group provides on-going information and support to the organization, which in turn is shared with the CADASIL community via this website, newsletters, and conferences. CTWHH extends an enormous thank you to the below medical professionals for volunteering their time towards the organization’s mission. | ||||||
| Dr. Anna Bersano Cerebrovascular Unit, Foundation IRCCS C.Besta Neurological Institute, Via Celoria 11, 20133, Milan, ITALY Dr. Hugues Chabriat Professor of Neurology at the University Paris VII in France. He is the Head of the Department of Neurology in University Hospital Lariboisiere (Paris) and the Coordinator of the Referral Centre for Rare Cerebrovascular Diseases (www.cervco.fr) in France. He received his MD from the Medicine Faculty “Cochin-Port Royal” and his PhD in Neuroscience from the Faculty of Science “Jussieu” at the University Paris VI. Dr. Chabriat is working with Professor Marie Germaine Bousser and has collaborated with Professor Elizabeth Tournier-Lasserve as well as Dr. Anne Joutel within “the French CADASIL team” for many years. He participated in the discovery of CADASIL and the identification of the mutated gene performed by the geneticists in France. His main research focuses on the imaging features of strokes particularly in small vessel diseases. He has made multiple contributions on the clinical, neuropsychological and imaging features of CADASIL and works on the dismantlement of small vessel diseases of undetermined origin. http://www.cervco.fr/equipe/presentation.en.htm Dr. James Grotta Professor of Neurology at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston and Director of the Stroke Program at Memorial Hermann – Texas Medical Center. He was named the American Heart Association’s Physician of the Year in 2006. He occupies the Roy M. and Phyllis Gough Huffington Distinguished Chair in Neurology which is funded by the National Institutes of Health with grants to carry out research from the laboratory to the bedside as well as train new fellows in the field of strokes. Dr. Grotta received his training at the Universities of Virginia and Colorado in addition to the Massachusetts General Hospital. He joined the University of Texas Houston Medical School faculty in 1979. His research focuses on development of new therapies for acute stroke patients. This includes experimental laboratory studies on the biology of brain injury, recovery after strokes, and approaches to reducing brain damage and improving recovery after strokes. He has also orchestrated the development of a collaborative network between University of Texas, Memorial Hermann Hospital, Houston Fire Department Emergency Medical Services, and other regional stroke centers to increase the delivery of appropriate therapy to a larger number of acute stroke patients. Dr. Grotta has an active clinical practice based at Memorial Hermann Hospital focused on stroke treatment and prevention and is a frequent invited lecturer at national and international meetings and symposia for the work he and his team have done in Houston. http://neurology.uth.tmc.edu/faculty/bio-James-Gro Professor Hugh Markus Hugh Markus is Professor of Stroke Medicine and Honorary Consultant Neurologist in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Cambridge, UK. His undergraduate training was at the Cambridge and clinical medical training at the University of Oxford. He trained in Medicine at Oxford and Nottingham and in Neurology in London before being appointed as Senior Lecturer and then Reader in Neurology at King’s College London. He then moved to Professor of Neurology at St George’s, University of London, before moving to his current post in 2013. He spends approximately half of his time in clinical care of stroke patients, including hyperacute stroke care as well as specialist stroke interests in small vessel stroke and CADASIL. He established genetic testing for CADASIL in the UK in the 1990s, has established a National CADASIL Clinic, and works closely with the CADASILsupportUK to try to improve care for CADASIL patients and their families in the UK. His research applies genetic and imaging techniques to investigate the pathogenesis of stroke and develop new treatments. He was disease lead for the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium 2 (WTCCC2) ischaemic stroke study and established the METASTROKE Genetics consortium. He has a particular interest in small vessel disease and vascular cognitive impairment, using MRI to investigate disease mechanisms and explore why the disease causes cognitive impairment, and developing new treatment approaches. He is Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Stroke. Mark T. Nelson Dr. Julie Rutten Dr. Julie Rutten is a senior researcher in the Dutch CADASIL Research Group. She has been working on CADASIL together with Dr. Saskia Lesnik Oberstein since more than 10 years. Her PhD project, which she obtained with honours, was dedicated to moving forward all aspects of CADASIL therapy development, including the pre-clinical development of NOTCH3 cysteine correction as a potential therapeutic strategy for CADASIL. Julie performed the seminal work on the discovery of the high frequency of NOTCH3 mutations in public whole genome databases, as well as the discovery of the NOTCH3 mutation position effect in CADASIL. Next to CADASIL patient care and research, Julie supports the Dutch CADASIL patient organization and meetings, and has organized and participated in multiple fund-raiser ‘CADASIL’ runs to increase CADASIL awareness. Julie is dedicated to continue her medical and scientific career in CADASIL and NOTCH3-associated small vessel disease. Her main interest lies in furthering the understating of the molecular underpinnings of the NOTCH3 genotype-phenotype association as well as discovering other major (genetic) CADASIL disease modifiers. Dr. Michael Wang Assistant professor of neurology and director of molecular stroke research in the Department of Neurology at the University of Michigan. He also is an assistant professor of molecular and integrative physiology at the U-M and a physician in neurology at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System.Dr. Wang’s research includes laboratory investigations into the molecular basis of stroke and the interaction between stroke, circadian rhythms and disordered sleep. A major interest of the lab is investigating the causes and treatment of CADASIL (Cerebral Autosomal Dominant Arteriopathy Subcortical Infarcts and Leukoencephalopathy), a devastating inherited cause of stroke and vascular dementia. His other interests include studies of the functions of endogenous hormones (estrogen) and differentiation factors on neurons. He received his bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, from Harvard University and earned his medical degree and doctorate in molecular biology and genetics from Johns Hopkins University (JHU) in 1994. In 1998, he completed his neurology residency at JHU; in 2000, he completed a stroke research fellowship with Drs. Richard Traystman and Patricia Hurn. Dr. Wang spent three years on the neurology faculty at JHU before joining the U-M faculty in 2003. During his time at JHU, he also served as a staff neurologist at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, both in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Wang was elected to Phi Beta Kappa during his junior year at Harvard and to Alpha Omega Alpha at JHU. While a fellow, he was awarded funding from the National Stroke Association and the American Heart Association, and also received a Burroughs Wellcome Career Award in Biomedical Sciences. His research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 2001. He has published his scientific work in Nature, Journal of Neuroscience and Stroke, and has served as a member of national grant review committees of the NIH and the American Heart Association. His bibliography includes more than 20 peer-reviewed publications, seven book chapters, and numerous abstracts and clinical papers. He also is an ad hoc reviewer for the Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism, American Journal of Physiology, Stroke, and Neurology, among others.At the U-M, Dr. Wang is involved in medical student pre-clinical education, resident education and clinical studies conducted by the U-M Brain Injury Group. He is a member of the Stroke Council of the American Heart Association and a member of the Society of Neuroscience. http://www.med.umich.edu/neurology/faculty/wang_research_bio.htm | ||||||