Understanding Clinical Trials in NMO and TM
August 18, 2014
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About Our Guest Speakers
Benjamin M. Greenberg, MD, MHS
Associate Professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Director of the Transverse Myelitis and Neuromyelitis Optica Program, Dallas, TX
Associate Professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Deputy Director of the Multiple Sclerosis Program and Director of the Transverse Myelitis and Neuromyelitis Optica Program, Dallas, TX
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 attended medical school at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Then, he completed an internship in medicine at Rush Presbyterian-St. Lukes Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois before going on to his residency in neurology at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD. He then joined the faculty within the division of neuroimmunology at Hopkins and became the co-director of the Transverse Myelitis Center and director of the Encephalitis Center. 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. That same year he established the Pediatric Demyelinating Disease Program at Children’s Medical Center Dallas.
Dr. Greenberg is recognized internationally as an expert in rare autoimmune disorders of the central nervous system (e.g. transverse myelitis, neuromyelitis optica, ADEM and autoimmune encephalitis). He splits his clinical time between seeing both adult and pediatric patients. He routinely consults on the inpatient units of University Hospital, Zale Lipshy, Parkland and Children’s. His research interests are in both the diagnosis and treatment of transverse myelitis, neuromyelitis optica, encephalitis, multiples sclerosis and infections of the nervous system. He is actively involved in developing better ways to diagnose and prognosticate for patients with these disorders. He has led an effort to improve biorepository development and has created uniform protocols for sample handling and analysis. As part of this initiative his research has identified novel biomarkers that may be able to distinguish between patients with various neurologic disorders. He also coordinates trials that study new treatments to prevent neurologic damage and restore function to those who have already been affected. He currently serves as the Director of the Neurosciences Clinical Research Center and is a Cain-Denius Foundation Scholar.
Michael Levy, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Neurology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Medical Director of General Neurology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD
Dr. Levy is Assistant Professor of Neurology at The Johns Hopkins University and Medical Director of General Neurology at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD. Dr. Levy also directs the Neuromyelitis Optica Clinic and follows over 200 patients with NMO and related disorders. In addition to clinical work at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Dr. Levy runs the Neuromyelitis Optica and stem cell research labs. The focus of his research is animal modeling of neuro-inflammatory disease and development of strategies to regenerate the nervous system with stem cell technology. Dr. Levy completed the MD/PhD program at Baylor College of Medicine in 2004, Neurology residency training at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 2008 followed by neuroimmunology fellowship training at Johns Hopkins focusing on NMO research. In Oct 2009, he was appointed to the faculty. Dr. Levy is a member of SRNA Medical and Scientific Council.
Dean Wingerchuk, MD
Professor of Neurology at the Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale, AZ
Dr. Dean Wingerchuk is a member of the Division of Multiple Sclerosis and Autoimmune Neurology. His research interests involve three main areas: 1) the clinical behavior, natural history, and management of central nervous system inflammatory demyelinating diseases, especially neuromyelitis optica (NMO) and multiple sclerosis (MS); 2) multiple sclerosis-related fatigue; 3) outcome measure development for multiple sclerosis clinical trials. Dr. Wingerchuk and his colleagues at the Mayo Clinic have worked for more than a decade to better understand NMO through the development of new diagnostic criteria for the disease, which provide the basis for clinical diagnosis and research. Collectively, their work aims to understand the pathophysiology of this distinct disease and to develop more effective therapies. Along with Dr. Sean Pittock, Dr. Wingerchuk directs a novel therapeutic protocol examining whether eculizumab is effective in preventing relapses and disability. Fatigue is the most common symptom of MS, but it is difficult to measure and to treat. Dr. Wingerchuk is the principal investigator of a three-site Mayo Clinic therapeutic protocol funded by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society in which he and his team are examining the effects of aspirin on MS-related fatigue and also studying the relationships between subjective fatigue, cognitive function, motor performance, and immunological markers. Dr. Wingerchuk is also collaborating with investigators in the Bioengineering Department at Arizona State University to develop objective measures of gait and motor function that predict future neurological deterioration before it is clearly evident on routine clinical examination. The final goal is to develop instruments and techniques to detect these early changes and use them as outcome measures in pilot studies of interventions that aim to slow or arrest disease worsening in progressive forms of MS.
