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About our Guest Speakers
Kyle Blackburn, MD
Dr. Blackburn is an assistant professor in the Department of Neurology at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas TX. He received his medical degree from the University of Kentucky College of Medicine and completed his neurology residency at UT Southwestern. He then completed a fellowship in neuroimmunology at UT Southwestern, where he received training from Dr. Ben Greenberg. During his fellowship, Dr. Blackburn was a James T Lubin Fellow, and he launched the Comprehensive Outcome Registry Exploring Transverse Myelitis (CORE TM) study, a registry collecting patient reported outcome measures on adult and pediatric patients with transverse myelitis and acute flaccid myelitis.
Stacey Clardy, MD, PhD
Dr. Clardy is both clinical and research faculty in the Division of Neuroimmunology within the Department of Neurology. Prior to joining the University of Utah team Dr. Clardy furthered her training with a fellowship in Autoimmune Neurology at the Mayo Clinic. Her training and experience focus on the evaluation and management of autoimmune and paraneoplastic disorders of the nervous system. The spectrum of autoimmune and paraneoplastic neurological disorders intersects all traditional neurology subspecialties, including movement disorders, epilepsy, behavioral/cognitive, neuromuscular, autonomic, demyelinating, and neurooncologic.
Her main clinical interest is devoted to patients affected by antibody-mediated disorders of the nervous system, as well as demyelinating CNS disease, including neuromyelitis optica (NMO) and multiple sclerosis, and Central nervous system complications of rheumatologic disease.
She established the Autoimmune Neurology Clinic at the University of Utah, one of the few clinics in the United States focused on serving this group of patients. Dr. Clardy is also the Director of the Autoimmune Neurology Fellowship program.
Eoin Flanagan, MB, B.Ch.
Dr Eoin Flanagan is a Professor of Neurology and Consultant in the departments of Neurology and Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN). He completed his medical school training at University College Dublin in Ireland in 2005. He did a medical residency in Ireland and then completed neurology residency, fellowships in neuroimmunology and a masters in clinical an translational science at Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN). He works in the Autoimmune Neurology and Multiple Sclerosis Clinics and the Neuroimmunology Laboratory at the Mayo Clinic. His clinical expertise and research is focused on inflammatory myelopathies and their imaging patterns, Myelin Oligodendrocyte Glycoprotein (MOG) antibody associated disorder, neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders, autoimmune encephalitis, paraneoplastic neurologic disorders and multiple sclerosis. He is principal investigator on an NIH RO1 grant studying MOG antibody associated disorder.
Benjamin Greenberg, MD, MHS
Dr. Benjamin Greenberg received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and his Masters Degree in Molecular Microbiology and Immunology from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. He completed his residency in neurology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and then joined the faculty within the division of neuroimmunology. In January of 2009, he was recruited to the faculty at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center where he was named Deputy Director of the Multiple Sclerosis Program and Director of the new Transverse Myelitis and Neuromyelitis Optica Program. Dr. Greenberg is recognized internationally as an expert in rare autoimmune disorders of the central nervous system. His research interests are in both the diagnosis and treatment of acute flaccid myelitis, transverse myelitis, neuromyelitis optica, encephalitis, multiple sclerosis, and infections of the nervous system. He currently serves as the Director of the Neurosciences Clinical Research Center and is a Cain Denius foundation scholar.
Michael Levy, MD, PhD
Dr. Michael Levy is an Associate Professor of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Research Director of the Division of Neuroimmunology & Neuroinfectious Disease. He completed the MD/PhD program at Baylor College of Medicine with a focus on neuroscience. In 2009, Dr. Levy was appointed to the faculty as Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins where he started the Neuromyelitis Optica Clinic and Research Laboratory and in 2019 he moved to the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School to develop the research program in neuroimmunology.
Clinically, Dr. Levy specializes in taking care of patients with rare neuroimmunological diseases including neuromyelitis optica, transverse myelitis, MOG antibody disease, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis and optic neuritis. In addition to neuroimmunology clinics, Dr. Levy has a special interest in patients with superficial siderosis of the central nervous system. Dr. Levy is the principal investigator on several clinical studies and drug trials for all of these conditions.
In the laboratory, Dr. Levy’s research focuses on the development of animal models of neuromyelitis optica and transverse myelitis with the goal of tolerization as a sustainable long-term treatment.
Carlos Pardo, MD
Dr. Pardo is an Associate Professor of Neurology (Division of Neuroimmunology and Neuroinfectious Disorders) and Pathology (Neuropathology) at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. He is the principal investigator of the Neuroimmunopathology Laboratory, member of the HIV Neurosciences Research Group and clinical neurologist at the Multiple Sclerosis and Transverse Myelitis Centers at Johns Hopkins Hospital. His clinical specialization is on neuroimmunological and Infectious disorders of the nervous system, with particular focus on multiple sclerosis, transverse myelitis, neurosarcoidosis, and neurological complications of autoimmune disorders.
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