The World Muscle Society is delighted to sponsor four Fellows from the International Centre for Genomic Medicine in Neuromuscular Diseases (ICGNMD) to attend its 2022 Congress.
ICGNMD is a transcontinental MRC-funded Centre, established in 2019 to build a large, deeply-phenotyped and genetically-defined international cohort of families with inherited neuromuscular diseases (NMDs) alongside training an international cohort of Fellows in clinical genomics.
ICGNMD aims to expand understanding of the global genetic architecture of NMDs, discovering new disease genes and mechanisms, while growing the capacity of partner sites to deliver accurate genetic diagnoses, host clinical trials and ultimately deliver improved health outcomes for patients with NMDs across a population of over 1.5 billion people.
Professor Mike Hanna, ICGNMD Director based at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, said: “We are very grateful to the World Muscle Society for its generous support of our outstanding ICGNMD Fellows to attend conferences in 2022 and 2023. The meeting in Halifax will be the first opportunity for Fellows to present some of their ICGNMD work to an international audience and I know they are all looking forward to the networking opportunities this will afford.”
Dr Lindsay Wilson, ICGNMD Centre Research Manager said: “ICGNMD held its induction in January 2020. As our international colleagues departed London to start recruitment and research, we could not have anticipated the challenges ahead. Despite partner countries being some of the worst-impacted by the pandemic, they established and grew the ICGNMD so well that we are now on target and starting to see exciting data outputs. The 2022 WMS Congress is especially well-timed for Fellows to discuss their work with international delegates, and of course to see one another again after an extraordinary few years.”
The four Fellows selected to present their work at the WMS 2022 Congress in Halifax, Nova Scotia, are:
Dr Venugopalan Y Vishnu is an Associate Professor at AIIMS Department of Neurology and ICGNMD Faculty PI Fellow and Centre Co-Investigator. He has wide-ranging neurology and neuromuscular disease interests, including a first in-depth characterisation of the genetic causes of FSHD in India. His clinical and research activity also extends to stroke, cognitive neurology, neuro-ophthalmology and imaging. Dr Venugopalan Y Vishnu also established AIIMS’ comprehensive neuromuscular disorders telemedicine service during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr Özlem Yayici Köken is an ICGNMD PhD Fellow. Her PhD project is focused on the genetic landscape of mitochondrial disease within Turkey. She has wide-ranging neuromuscular experience, including of Duchenne’s and other muscular dystrophies. She is a paediatric neurologist and Associate Professor of Paediatric Neurology in the Akdeniz University Faculty of Medicine, and retains strong links and cohort recruitment activity at Ankara City Hospital.
Dr Tomaselli is an ICGNMD Faculty PI Fellow based at the University of São Paulo, Clinical Hospital of Ribeirão Preto, working in the team of Professor Wilson Marques and Prof Claudia Sobreira. He has published widely in inherited ataxias and hereditary neuropathies, including Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease but brings to ICGNMD a broad-ranging interest in inherited neuromuscular and complex neurological disorders.
Dr Rodrigo Frezatti is an ICGNMD PhD fellow in the team of Professor Wilson Marques. He is funded by Guarantors of Brain (UK registered charity 1197319) to study the clinical and phenotypic spectra and molecular biology of non-5Q proximal spinal muscular atrophies in Brazil. He is based at the University of São Paulo, Clinical Hospital of Ribeirão Preto.
This article is presented by the
Myology developments across the world Committee.
Published on 5 October 2022.
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