The Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children, Media , United States

Lindsay Alfano is an associate professor in The Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. She is a physical therapist specializing in outcome measure administration, selection, and development for patients with neuromuscular diseases.

University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne , United Kingdom

Sorbonne Université, GHU Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris , France

Dr Teresinha Evangelista is a Board-certified neurologist and neuropathologist with long standing clinical and research expertise in neuromuscular disorders. Dr Teresinha Evangelista was the president of the Portuguese Society for the Study of Neuromuscular Diseases from 2009 to 2013. In 2018, she became the coordinator of the European Reference Network for rare neuromuscular diseases EURO-NMD. In 2018, she joined the « Unité de Morphologie Neuromusculaire; Institut de Myologie - Sorbonne Université, GHU Pitié-Salpêtrière ».

NHO Kure Medical Center and Chugoku Cancer Center, Kure , Japan

Dr Takashi Kurashige works as Adult Neurologist and Neuropathologist about 20 years in Japan. Dr Kurashige was trained from 2007 in Tokyo Metropolican Geriatric Hospital for Neuropathology. Now, Dr Kurashige works for neuropathological research, especially research to neuromuscular diseases and motor neuron diseases.

Folkhälsan Research Center, HELSINKI , Finland

After graduating from the University of Helsinki in 2009 with a Master’s degree in Human Genetics, Dr. Jenni Laitila has studied Nemaline Myopathy (NM) in the Wallgren-Pettersson/Pelin lab in Helsinki (Finland) and in the Laing/Nowak lab in Perth (Western Australia). These research groups have worked relentlessly for more than 25 years towards elucidating the pathogenetic mechanisms leading to the disorder. In 2019, she defended her Doctoral Dissertation based on her studies of nebulin-related NM. Earlier this year, she completed her postdoc project abroad, in Dr Ochala’s lab (Copenhagen, Denmark), studying myosin dysfunction in NM. Currently, she is back in Finland, working in the Myofin group at Folkhälsan Research Center, continuing on the path to unveiling the molecular changes leading to myopathies, aiming at finding potential new targets for therapy.

Mayo Clinic, Rochester , United States

Dr. Liewluck is a Professor of Neurology at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota, USA. He obtained his medical degree from the Faculty of Medicine, Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University in Thailand, and pursued a neuromuscular research fellowship at the National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry of Japan under the directorship of Professor Ichizo Nishino. He furthered his expertise with a neurology residency at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, followed by dual fellowships in Clinical Neurophysiology (EMG) and Muscle Diseases at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester under the directorship of the late Professor Andrew G. Engel. Dr. Liewluck holds board certifications in Neurology, Neuromuscular Medicine, and Clinical Neuromuscular Pathology. His clinical practice and research focus on a comprehensive understanding of muscle diseases, particularly acquired myopathies. He has authored over 130 peer-reviewed articles and nine book chapters and co-edited one book. Dr. Liewluck is actively involved in professional organizations such as the WMS, AAN, ANA, AANEM, IMACS, and IMyoS. He served as chair of the ANA Neuromuscular Disease Special Interest Group in 2023, vice chair of the AAN Neuromuscular Section from 2023 to 2025, and vice chair of the IMACS Scientific Committee from 2023 to 2025. Dr. Liewluck currently chairs the Abstract Review Committee of the AANEM and is an associate board member of IMyoS.

National Institute of Neuroscience, NCNP, Kodaira , Japan

Director, Department of Neuromuscular Research, National Institute of Neuroscience, NCNP, Kodaira, Japan.

Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research and UWA, Perth , Australia

I would welcome more active involvement with the WMS. The society needs greater representation by women at the Executive/Leadership level and could do more to grow and develop emerging/junior researchers. There is a lot of financial support and the training course is wonderful but more could be done around mentoring, career development.

Folkhalsan Research Center, Helsinki , Finland

I work as a senior scientist in the Myofin research group, Folkhälsan Research Center, Helsinki, Finland. A biologist by training, I majored in genetics at the University of Helsinki and did my PhD on molecular pathomechanisms of muscular dystrophies in the Bjarne Udd group. After a postdoc period in the autophagy world, I returned to the Udd lab where I continue to study the molecular and cell biological mechanisms of muscle diseases, mostly using cell models. While my main interest is titin, I'm most of the time busy with other things such as chaperones and stress granules.

Institute of Neuropathology, Giessen , Germany

Anne Schänzer is head of the diagnostic and research neuromuscular lab. She is specializing on morphology of skeletal and cardiac muscle including electron microscopy and her research focus are genetic and acquired neuromuscular disorders in children and adults.

University of Oxford (UK) University of Liège (Belgium), Oxford , United Kingdom

Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin , Germany

Werner Stenzel is a Neuropathologist and Myopathologist, and the head of the neuromuscular diagnostic and research unit in Berlin at the Charité Hospital.

Newcastle University , Newcastle upon Tyne , United Kingdom

Volker was trained as a paediatric neurologist at the universities of Düsseldorf and Essen. He wrote his PhD thesis on Duchenne muscular dystrophy and worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Iowa/USA. He has a long-standing interest in mechanisms of genetic muscle diseases, with research using cell and animal models. His current research also involves the application of muscle imaging and next generation sequencing. He is a principal investigator for a number of natural history and interventional trials, the director of the John Walton Muscular Dystrophy Research Centre and deputy dean of Newcastle University’s Translational and Clinical Research Institute. He is an author on >450 peer-reviewed publications.

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore , United States