Hospital Clínico Universidad de Chile
Santiago, Chile
It would be a privilege for me to serve on the Executive Board of the World Muscle Society. I have been a member of the World Muscle Society since 2003 and have been more actively involved in recent years since I participated as a member of the organizing committee for the WMS meeting in Mendoza Argentina in 2018. I am motivated to become member of the Excecutive Board of the WMS to approach the vision of the very active Latin American neuromuscular community to the WMS, to contribute with the promotion of education, the scientific exchange, and disseminate the experience of the WMS in the continent. I also plan to place Chile as venue of the WMS Congress in a near future.
I am convinced that the inclusion of members from different parts of the world to the WMS Excecutive Board will enrich the WMS contributing to the development of a more global and comprehensive WMS. I feel inspired to contribute to the globalization of the WMS, I also think that the experience gained in the past 20 years working as a clinician, researcher, and teacher in the field of neuromuscular diseases in Latin America and Europe can be a valuable resource for the WMS.
I am currently a clinician scientist, muscle and nerve physiologist, and muscle pathologist, at the Hospital Clínico Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile, where I lead the neuromuscular program, and I am a Professor of Neurology and Professor of Anatomy, at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Chile and also Head of Myology Laboratory at Clínica Dávila, in Santiago, Chile.
I obtained my medical degree at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina in 1989. I have been trained in Pathology at the University Hospital of the University of Buenos Aires (1990-1991). Between 1991 and 1994 I performed a Ph.D. in Neurobiology at the University of Wales, College of Cardiff, UK. In 1995 I established in Chile where I did a Residency in Adult Neurology at the Hospital Clínico Universidad de Chile (1998-2001). I was privileged to have been trained in Muscle Pathology at the Hospital de Pediatría Dr. Prof. J. P. Garrahan, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and later in Institut de Myologie, Paris, France 2006, where I obtained a Diploma in Myology at the Université de Paris 6 UPMC. I have also been trained in clinical electrophysiology of the peripheral nervous system (EMG and NCS) at the Hospital Clínico Universidad de Chile. Throughout my career, I have been engaged in the teaching of Histology and Pathology at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, the Universidad de Buenos Aires, and later as an Associate Professor of the Departments of Histology and Pathology of the Universidad de Santiago de Chile (1995-1998), and further of the Department of Anatomy and Legal Medicine and the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Chile, where I am currently appointed as Full Professor.
My clinical expertise is in adult general neurology and neuromuscular disorders, with my area of interest in diagnosing and treating myopathies. I am actively working in the implementation of diagnostic tools for myopathies in Chile, and, I have an active research program that spans clinical to translational to fundamental myology with active national and international collaborations with the Institut de Myologie de Paris, the Aix-Marseille Université, France as well as the University of Newcastle, focused mainly in the clinical physiopathology of dysferlinopathy, limb-girdle muscular dystrophies, Pompe’s disease, and other hereditary myopathies.
I enjoy teaching and disseminating myology. I am currently a co-leader of the Euro Latin-American Summer School of Myology EVELAM, an annual workshop on myology, successfully performed in different countries of Latin America since 2008, and a member of the Scientific Board of the Latin American Society of Neuromuscular Diseases, SOLANE, President of the III SOLANE Congress in 2021, teacher at Academyo, Paris, France and am a member of the TREAT NMD Education Committee, actively participating in the implementation of the Treat-NMD Masterclasses.
Research benchmarks: 62 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters. H-index: 21 (1488 citations - google scholar).
