Dr. Aguzzi has devoted the past 25 years to studying the immunological and molecular basis of prion pathogenesis, combining transgenetics with molecular and immunological techniques to clarify the pathogenesis of the disease, and to identify cells and molecules involved in prion neuroinvasion.

He serves on the editorial board of Science, on the scientific advisory board of philanthropic foundations and biomedical companies and is the Editor in Chief of the Swiss Medical Weekly. Prof. Aguzzi has won the Ernst-Jung Prize, the Robert Koch Prize, and the medal of the European Molecular Biology Organization, and has held two ERC Advanced Grants.

Rudi Balling received his PhD in Nutrition from the University of Bonn, Germany. After completing research posts at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute in Toronto, the Max Planck Institute of Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen and the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology in Freiburg, he became Director of the Institute of Mammalian Genetics at the GSF Research Center in Munich. In 2001 he took over the position as Director of the Helmholtz-Centre for Infection Research in Braunschweig and in 2009 he became founding Director of the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine, an interdisciplinary centre of the University of Luxembourg.

Roger Barker is the Professor of Clinical Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge and Consultant Neurologist at the Addenbrooke's Hospital Cambridge, PI in the MRC-Wellcome Trust Stem Cell Institute in Cambridge and Director of the UK Regenerative Medicine Platform in pluripotent and engineered cells.

For the last 25 years he has run research that seeks to better define the clinical heterogeneity of two common neurodegenerative disorders of the CNS- namely Parkinson's (PD) and Huntington's disease (HD)- and the neurobiological basis of this. This has helped him define the best way by which to take new therapies into the clinic including drug repurposing, gene and cell based trials for patients with these conditions.

Dr. Bedard is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto and a Staff Medical Oncologist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. He is the Chair for the Canadian Clinical Trials Group Investigational New Drug Committee and Executive Board Member for the Breast International Group. He received the 2017 William E. Rawls Prize from the Canadian Cancer Society. His clinical practice includes the treatment of patients with breast and testicular cancers. His research involves early phase clinical trials with a focus on personalized treatments based on the results of testing for DNA mutations within tumor cells.

Dr. Patrik Brundin is the director of Van Andel Research Institute’s Center for Neurodegenerative Science. He earned his Ph.D. in 1988 and M.D. in 1992, both from Lund University, and is one of the top cited researchers in the field of neuroscience with more than 350 publications on Parkinson’s disease and related topics. His research focuses on pathogenic mechanisms of Parkinson’s as well as the development of therapies that slow or stop disease progression or that repair damaged brain circuits. He is a member of the World Parkinson Coalition Board of Directors and the Advisory Council to Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (an initiative from the Sergey Brin Family Foundation). He also serves as co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Parkinson’s Disease and chair of the Linked Clinical Trials scientific committee.

Dr. Cedarbaum obtained his medical degree from Yale Medical School, where he is currently Professor (Adjunct) of Psychiatry. After residency at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center Dr. Cedarbaum joined the Cornell faculty and led the Parkinson and Movement Disorders program at Burke and New York Hospital, working with Dr. Fletcher McDowell, from 1983-1990. Dr. Cedarbaum is currently Vice President, Early Clinical Development, at Biogen, leading a team focused on development of novel therapeutics for Parkinson’s disease and Movement Disorders. He currently is the Industry Co-Chair of the Critical Path for Parkinson’s consortium sponsored by the Critical Path Initiative and Parkinson’s UK.

Dr. Chertkow is a practicing cognitive neurologist at the Baycrest Health Sciences of University of Toronto in Toronto, Canada. Dr. Chertkow’s lab is the first to show that transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can produce clinically meaningful improvement in language disorders in elderly individuals with neurodegenerative disease. He is senior author of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), which has become an international standard for diagnosis of MCI, has been cited over 8,000 times, and is the most cited paper in the field of neurology in the world in the 21st century. In 2014 Dr. Chertkow was elected to the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. At that time he also became the Scientific Director for the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging (CCNA), a national organization overseeing dementia research.

Christopher Coffey is a Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Iowa, and has served as the Director of the Clinical Trials Statistical and Data Management Center (CTSDMC) since 2010. Dr. Coffey received his PhD in biostatistics from the University of North Carolina in 1999, and has nearly 20 years of experience providing data management and statistical support to clinical trials. Dr. Coffey serves as PI of the Data Coordinating Center for the NINDS-funded Network for Excellence in Neuroscience Clinical Trials (NeuroNEXT), serves as the head of the Statistics Core for the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative, and has been the primary statistician for multi-site clinical trials in a variety of disease areas.

Dr. Alberto Espay is Professor and Endowed Chair of the James J and Joan A Gardner Center for Parkinson’s disease at the University of Cincinnati. He trained in clinical and electrophysiology of Movement Disorders and Clinical Epidemiology and Health Care Research at the University of Toronto (2001-2005). He has served as Chair of the Movement Disorders Section of the AAN, Associate Editor of the journal Movement Disorders, and in the Executive Committee of the PSG. He currently serves as Chair of the MDS Task Force on Technology and as Secretary-Elect of the Pan-American Section of the MDS.

Matt Farrer is a human geneticist and molecular neuroscientist. His work in Parkinson’s disease (PD) genetics has helped re-defined its epidemiology, pathologic criteria and clinical subtypes. While unequivocal mutant gene discoveries provide a molecular and mechanistic foundation for the disease, they also provide the tools to study it, from stratified patient populations to animal models. Matt ‘s research is currently focused on the frontier between neurogenetics and neuroscience, investigating dopaminergic function, synaptic-endosomal recycling, microautophagy and chaperone activity.

Dr. Alfonso Fasano joined the Movement Disorder Centre at Toronto Western Hospital in 2013, where he is the co-director of the surgical program for movement disorders. He is also professor of medicine in the Division of Neurology at the University of Toronto and clinician investigator at the Krembil Research Institute. Dr. Fasano's main areas of interest are the treatment of movement disorders with advanced technology (infusion pumps and neuromodulation), pathophysiology and treatment of tremor and gait disorders.

Hubert H. Fernandez, MD, is Professor of Medicine (Neurology) at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University and the Center Director for the Center for Neurological Restoration at Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio.

Dr Fernandez received both his BS in Biology and MD degree from the Philippines. He completed his internship in Internal Medicine at University of Pennsylvania/Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; his residency in Neurology at Boston University Medical Center in Massachusetts; and his fellowship in Movement Disorders at Brown University in Rhode Island.

Dr Fernandez is an internationally recognized expert in movement disorders who has been voted one of the Best Doctors in America by his peers. After completing his medical training, he joined the faculty of Brown University School of Medicine as Assistant Professor of the Department of Clinical Neurosciences and served as Associate Director of the Movement Disorders Unit and Neurological Director of its Functional Neurosurgical Program. In 2003, Dr Fernandez relocated to the University of Florida, where he eventually became Director of the Clinical Research Unit for Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders, Vice Chair of Academic Affairs, and Professor of Neurology prior to joining Cleveland Clinic. An active and productive researcher, he has initiated or participated in over 60 clinical trials and has published his findings in well over 300 articles and abstracts on Parkinson’s disease, cervical dystonia, blepharospasm, and other movement disorders. He has nearly 50 published book chapters and books to his credit, and has served on the editorial board of Movement Disorders and is currently an editorial board member of the American Journal of Clinical Neurology, European Neurological Journal, and Clinical Neuropharmacology.

Dr Fernandez is a fellow of the American Academy of Neurology and the American Neurological Association. He is currently elected as the Co-Chair of the Parkinson Study Group, the Interim President of the World Neurology Foundation, and is serving his third term as Co-Medical Editor of the Movement Disorders Society Website. He has been a Councilor for the AAN Movement Disorders Section, Executive Committee Member of the Parkinson Study Group and Dystonia Study Group and was the President of the Florida Society of Neurology. Recently, he was awarded the Presidential Distinguished Service Award by the Movement Disorders Society at the 16th International Congress for Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders in Dublin, Ireland in 2012.

Lorraine Kalia is an assistant professor and scientist in the Division of Neurology at University of Toronto with appointments at Krembil Research Institute and Tanz Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases. She is also a movement disorders neurologist in the Edmond J Safra Program in Parkinson's disease at Toronto Western Hospital. Her research program focuses on Parkinson's disease with the goal of understanding the key molecular mechanisms responsible for neurodegeneration. She is currently funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. She also receives funding from the Michael J Fox Foundation and Parkinson Canada to lead a project investigating molecular pathology in human LRRK2 brains.

Karl Kieburtz is a Professor of Neurology at the University of Rochester. He was the founding Director of the Center for Human Experimental Therapeutics, which conducts learning phase clinical trials in a wide spectrum of disorders. He was also the initial Robert J. Joynt Professor in Neurology, and served as the Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Research and Director of the Clinical & Translational Science Institute, where he continues to have a senior advisory role. Dr Kieburtz’s primary clinical and research interests are neurodegenerative diseases affecting the basal ganglia. He was the principal investigator (PI) for the NINDS sponsored trials of neuroprotective agents for PD (NET-PD), served as the Chair of the Parkinson Study Group, and directs the Clinical Core for the Fox Foundation sponsored Parkinson Progression Marker Initiative. He has served as the PI for many multicenter clinical trials in Huntington disease (HD), including the first NIH-funded multicenter trial in HD (CARE HD), and the initial dosage ranging trials of Pridopidine. He previously served on and chaired the FDA Advisory Committee on Peripheral and Central Nervous System Disorders. In 2009, he was one of the co-founders of Clintrex LLC, and continues to serve as President of the organization.

Dr. Jeffrey H. Kordower is The Alla V. and Solomon Jesmer Professor of Neurological Sciences at Rush Medical Center. He received both his Ph.D. and an Honorary Doctor of Science from CUNY. Dr. Kordower has published over 400 papers and chapters and his laboratory is particularly well known for translational neuroscience with 7 clinical trials resulting from his work. Thirteen of his papers are citation classics (over 400 citations) with 4 cited over 1000 times. He is on numerous Editorial Boards and is a Past-President of the American Society for Neural Therapy. He is currently serving his second term on the MJFF Executive Scientific Advisory Board.

Dimitri Krainc currently serves as the Ward Professor and Chairman of the Department of Neurology and Director of the Center for Neurogenetics at Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. Previously, Dr. Krainc spent more than 20 years at Harvard Medical School where he also completed his research training followed by a neurology residency and fellowship in movement disorders at MGH. He then served on the neurology faculty at MGH and Harvard Medical School until 2013 when he relocated to Chicago. The overarching goal of Dr. Krainc’s research is to study molecular mechanisms of neurodegeneration, focusing on Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease, in order to facilitate the development of targeted therapies.

Dr. Lang is Professor and previous Director of the Division of Neurology at the University of Toronto where he holds the Jack Clark Chair for Parkinson’s Disease Research. He is the Director of the Edmond J. Safra Program in Parkinson’s Disease and the Morton and Gloria Shulman Movement Disorders Clinic and holds the Lily Safra Chair in Movement Disorders at the Toronto Western Hospital, University Health Network. He has published over 700 peer-reviewed papers and over 100 book chapters and is one of the most highly cited investigators in the field of Movement Disorders.

Dr. Virginia M.-Y. Lee obtained her PhD in Biochemistry, University of California San Francisco (1973) and an MBA at the Wharton School (1984). She is the John H. Ware 3rd Professor in Alzheimer’s Research and directs the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work was instrumental in demonstrating that tau, α-synuclein and TDP-43 proteins form unique brain aggregates with a central role in numerous neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, frontotemporal dementias and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. She is a member of the Institute of Medicine and American Academy of Arts and Sciences and her research on Alzheimer’s disease has won her numerous awards.

Dr. Lozano is Chairman of Neurosurgery at the University of Toronto and holds the Tasker Chair in Functional Neurosurgery at Toronto Western Hospital and a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Neuroscience. He is best known for his work in the field of Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS). His team has mapped out cortical and subcortical circuits in the human brain and pioneered novel applications of DBS. Dr. Lozano has >600 publications and is the world’s most cited neurosurgeon according to Thompson Reuters. He has trained >70 international post-doctoral fellows.

Kenneth Marek’s major research interests include identification of biomarkers for early detection, assessment of disease progression and development of new treatments for Parkinson's disease and related neurodegenerative disorders. He has authored numerous neurology and neuroscience publications on these topics. Dr. Marek is the principal investigator of several ongoing multi-center international studies (including the Parkinson Progression Marker Initiative (PPMI) and the Parkinson Associated Risk Syndrome (PARS)) study. Dr. Marek serves as a special scientific advisor to The Michael J. Fox Foundation. He also was a co-founder of Molecular NeuroImaging, a company providing discovery and clinical neuroimaging research services.

Francesca Morgante is a clinical neuroscientist specialized in diagnosis and treatment of Parkinson’s disease. She got her medical degree in 2000 at University of Messina (Italy), where she also completed her residency in Neurology in 2005 and gained her PhD in Neuroscience in 2009. In 2004-2005 she completed her research fellowship in electrophysiology of movement disorders in the Division of Neurology at University of Toronto. She is a Reader at St. George’s University of London and honorary consultant neurologist at St. George’s Hospital, where she focuses her main clinical activities on people with Parkinson’s disease treated with Deep Brain Stimulation. Her research is focused on psychiatric features of Parkinson’s disease, particularly impulsive-compulsive behaviours, on the brain mechanism of motor complications of Parkinson’s disease (such as dyskinesia) and on novel technologies applied to Deep Brain Stimulation.

Prof. José Obeso is the director of the Neuroscience centre (CINAC) in Madrid inserted in the HM Puerta del Sur General Hospital as part of Hospitales de Madrid healthcare network, and full professor of Neurology in CEU-San Pablo University. He heads a highly active team devoted to understand and develop new treatments for Parkinson's disease. He is Editor in Chief of the Movement Disorders Journal (IF=8.324), the leading publication in the field of Parkinson’s disease and movement disorders, since 2010. He has been elected to occupy the Neurology chair (# 48) of the National Academy of Medicine of Spain, and awarded “doctor of the year” by the ABC daily newspaper. Prof. Obeso has published more than 350 peer-reviewed papers on the pathophysiology and treatment of levodopa-induced dyskinesias and the basal ganglia in Parkinson´s disease. He has a high number of relevant publications in top general journals of, and particularly in neurology/neuroscience journals like, Annals of Neurology, Brain, Nature Neuroscience Reviews, Trends in Neuroscience, etc. His current Hirsch index is 78. He has also contributed to teaching and academics with over one hundred book chapters including recently one in the Harrison’s Textbook of Medicine, editorial pieces and several hundreds communications and lectures at scientific meetings. Prof. Obeso has also served on the editorial boards of prestigious journals, and served on the scientific grants review committees of the Parkinson's Disease Foundation, Michael J. Fox Foundation, Anne Obretch Parkinson Foundation or Dystonia Foundation, etc. He is honorary member and Invited Professor of several organizations and institutions such as the Colombian Neurological Association, Bolivian Neurological Association and Universidad de La Habana.

Last year he was awarded with the Astra Zeneca prize, an honorary award in recognition of excellence in scientific career.

C. Warren Olanow is the former Henry P. and Georgette Goldschmidt Professor and Chairman of the Department of Neurology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and the current CEO of Clintrex. He has served as President of the MDS, President of the ISMD, Treasurer of the ANA, and Editor of Movement Disorders. He is an Honorary Professor at the University of London, Honorary Member of French Neurological Society, honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (UK), and recipient of the Presidential Award from the MDS, Movement Disorder Research Award from the AAN, and Honorary Membership Award from the International Parkinson Disease and Movement Disorder Society.

George Perry is Chief Scientist of the Brain Health Consortium and holds the Semmes Foundation Distinguished University Chair in Neurobiology. Perry is recognized in the field of Alzheimer’s disease research, and has studied essentially every aspect of the disease. For 30 plus years, Perry has been a strong advocate for greater diversity in ideas to move the field forward.

Perry is distinguished as one of the top Alzheimer’s disease researchers with over 1,100 publications, one of the top 100 most-cited scientists in neuroscience and behavior, and one of the top 25 scientists in free radical research. He is editor-in-chief for the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, the most cited and prolific journal in Alzheimer’s research.

Dr. Postuma is Professor of Neurology at McGill University. He graduated with his Medical Degree from the University of Manitoba, completed a Neurology fellowship at McGill University, a Movement Disorders research fellowship at the University of Toronto, and a Masters in Epidemiology at McGill. He is a clinical movement disorders specialist, and has a research interest mainly centered around non-motor aspects of Parkinson's disease, including early detection of PD, diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders, and clinical trials in the early stages of PD.

Dr. Fleming leads an interdisciplinary research group of mathematical, computational and experimental biologists. The fundamental interest is to develop scalable mathematical and numerical analysis techniques that increase the predictive fidelity of biomolecular network models, by incorporating physico-chemical constraints, motivated by optimality principles. Their applied interest is in the aetiopathogenesis and amelioration of Parkinson’s disease. Model predictions are used for optimal experimental design and compared with quantitative experimental data, including that obtained from their microfluidic cell cultures of dopaminergic neurons, derived from normal and Parkinsonian human subjects using stem cell biology techniques.

Dr. Rowe is a pioneer in the field of personalized therapeutics for cystic fibrosis (CF), cutting-edge discovery in airway disease biology, and translational research in COPD. He is an international authority in the design and conduct of clinical trials targeting the basic CF defect, and has made key advances in the measurement and interpretation of CFTR function in humans and animals. Dr. Rowe co-invented one-micron resolution optical coherence tomography (Micro-OCT) that captures 3D imaging in real-time at the cellular level, and with his collaborators is the first to bring this technique in vivo in humans. Dr. Rowe is Director of the Gregory Fleming Cystic Fibrosis Research Center at UAB, which involves over 100 faculty members and has been continuously funded for over 25 years. He presently has a laboratory of over 25 individuals, embracing lung research from basic discovery, to translational science, to clinical application.

Dr. Schwarzschild directs the Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory at the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease (MIND)/MGH, pursuing epidemiological links to a reduced risk or progression of Parkinson’s disease in cellular and animal models of the disease. Through cross-disciplinary collaboration Dr. Schwarzschild and his colleagues have conducted clinical trials of such candidate neuroprotectants, and are exploring tele-health outcomes as alternative assessments of PD progression. He chairs the Executive Committee of the Parkinson Study Group (PSG), a network of over 120 PD trial centers across North America. At MGH he works with Parkinson's patients and their families in his weekly movement disorders clinic.

Todd Sherer, PhD, is the Chief Executive Officer of The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. Trained as a neuroscientist, he is responsible for the Foundation's overall scientific and fundraising direction to speed treatment breakthroughs and a cure for Parkinson's disease. Dr. Sherer has played a major role in efforts to increase the pharmaceutical industry's investment in Parkinson's drug development and to engage the patient community in clinical research participation. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Emory University investigating the role of environmental factors in Parkinson's, he joined the Foundation's staff in 2004 and was named Chief Executive Officer in 2011.

Dr Singleton’s research initially focused on genetic determinants of dementia, in particular Alzheimer’s disease and dementia with Lewy bodies. His postdoctoral studies were spent at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville Florida. Dr Singleton moved to the National Institute on Aging at NIH Bethesda, MD in 2001 and became a principal investigator leading the Molecular Genetics Unit in 2002. In 2007 Dr. Singleton became a tenured senior investigator at the National Institute on Aging, in 2008 he became the Chief of the Laboratory of Neurogenetics, and in 2016 he was named an NIH Distinguished Investigator.

Dr. Singleton has published more than 500 articles on a wide variety of topics. His laboratory works on the genetic basis of neurological disorders including Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer’s disease, dystonia, ataxia, dementia with Lewy bodies, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Dr. Standaert graduated from Harvard College and received M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Washington University in St. Louis. Following Neurology residency at the University of Pennsylvania, he was appointed a Howard Hughes Fellow and completed a three-year research and clinical fellowship in Movement Disorders at Massachusetts General Hospital. He was a member of the faculty at Harvard Medical School from 1995 to 2006 and then relocated to the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Currently he is the John N. Whitaker Professor and Chair of the Department of Neurology and a senior member of the faculty of the Division of Movement Disorders. He is Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the American Parkinson Disease Association, an Associate Editor of the journal Movement Disorders, a Fellow of both the American Neurological Association and the American Academy of Neurology, a Councilor of the Association of University Professor of Neurology, and a member of the NIH/NINDS Board of Scientific Counselors. His laboratory works on understanding both the root causes of Parkinson’s disease as well as the origin of the disabling symptoms that appear after long term treatment of the disease.

A. Jon Stoessl is professor, head of Neurology and co-Director of the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health at the University of British Columbia. He holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Parkinson’s, is Deputy Editor of Movement Disorders and sits on numerous other editorial boards including Lancet Neurology. He chairs the Scientific Advisory Board of the Parkinson’s Foundation and is President of the World Parkinson Coalition and a Member of the Order of Canada. Dr. Stoessl uses positron emission tomography to study Parkinson’s, including imaging biomarkers, the basis for complications of treatment and mechanisms of the placebo effect.

The focus of Dr. Strafella is on Parkinson’s disease and Atypical Parkinsonism using advanced neuroimaging technology and novel PET radio-ligands. He has applied these innovative methods to study neurochemical mechanisms of motor, cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms. Dr. Strafella serves on the Advisory Board of the CIHR-Institute in Neuroscience Mental Health and Addiction and been invited to participate in various scientific and editorial boards and a member of grant review panels at national (CIHR committees; Parkinson Society Canada) and international levels (NIH-USA; Michael J. Fox Foundation, National Parkinson Foundation-USA; and others).

John Q. Trojanowski obtained his MD/PhD in 1976 from Tufts University, did his internal medicine internship at Mt. Auburn Hospital, his pathology and neuropathology at Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine where he joined the faculty in 1981. He is Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Director of the NIA Alzheimer’s Disease Center, the NINDS Morris K. Udall Parkinson’s Disease Center, and the Institute on Aging. His research focuses on Alzheimer’s (AD) and Parkinson’s (PD) disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), frontotemporal degeneration (FTD) which led to the discovery of the major disease proteins in these disorders, i.e. tau, alpha-synuclein and TDP-43 proteins, and that aggregation of these pathological proteins is a common mechanism underlying these disorders thereby opening new avenues for drug discovery to treat these disorders. Dr. Trojanowski is among the top 10 most highly cited AD researchers from 1997 to 2007 with an h-index of 205.

Dr Caroline Williams-Gray is an MRC Clinician Scientist and Movement Disorders Neurologist in Cambridge, UK. The overarching aim of her research is to better understand the clinical heterogeneity of Parkinson’s disease and the neurobiological basis of this, with the ultimate goal of developing targeted therapeutic strategies for different PD subtypes. Using epidemiological, neuroimaging and genetic approaches, her work to date has defined and characterised distinct cognitive syndromes in PD, and developed prognostic tools for dementia risk and disease outcomes for use at the individual patient level. Her group now investigates the role of the immune system in mediating clinical heterogeneity in PD.

Dr. D. James Surmeier is the Nathan Smith Davis Professor and Chair of the Department of Physiology at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. Dr. Surmeier received his Ph.D. in Physiology and Biophysics from the University of Washington. He trained with leaders in the field of neurophysiology, including Dr. Arnold Towe, Dr. William Willis and Dr. Stephen Kitai. He assumed his current position as Chair of the Department of Physiology at Northwestern University in 2001. Using an array of cutting-edge approaches, Dr. Surmeier’s research program focuses physiological determinants of Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases.