Congratulations to Award winners
The Epilepsy Research Recognition Awards, considered the most prestigious prize for research in epilepsy, are given annually to active scientists and clinicians working in all aspects of epilepsy research. The awards are designed to recognize professional excellence reflected in a distinguished history of research or important promise for the improved understanding, diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy. The award, in the amount of $10,000, is granted annually to one Basic Science and one Clinical Investigator. The Committee is happy to announce the Awardees for 2012 are Richard Miles, Ph.D. and Renzo Guerrini, M.D.
Richard Miles, Ph.D., recipient of the 2012 Basic Science Investigator Award, directs the group Cortex and Epilepsy at the Institute for the Brain and Spinal Cord, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Pitie-Salpetriere, Paris. He received his doctorate in physiology from the University of Bristol, England, and completed postdoctoral training in neuroscience at the University of Texas, Galveston. After a research assistant professor position at Columbia, NY. Dr. Miles pursued research in cell neurobiology at the Institut Pasteur, Paris, from 1989,
Dr. Miles has made a number of seminal contributions in the understanding of hippocampal electrophysiology using in vitro and in situ neuronal recording techniques chiefly focused on CA3 synaptic circuits. With his collaborators he demonstrated differences between somatic and dendritic inhibition providing remarkable insight into cortical wiring. His work suggesting that GABAergic activity could be excitatory in epileptic human tissue engendered a new field in epilepsy research. In addition to ongoing studies of resected human epileptic brain tissue from pharmaco-resistant patients with temporal lobe epilepsy, Dr. Miles’s recent work is focused on genetic and acquired animal models of epilepsy.
Dr. Miles’s important discoveries have been published in Science, Nature, and in leading journals in Neuroscience and Physiology. He is co-author with Roger D. Traub, M.D., of Neuronal Networks of the Hippocampus, a major classic work in the field. He has also served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Physiology, the European Community DGXII, Neurosciences Grants Committee, the Wellcome Trust Neurosciences and Mental Health Committee, and currently serves as an advisor to the French Foundation for Epilepsy Research.
Renzo Guerrini, M.D., recipient of the 2012 Clinical Investigator Award, is Director and Professor of Pediatric Neurology and Psychiatry, Department of Neuroscience, University of Florence Anna Meyer Children’s Hospital. He received his medical degree from the University of Perugia where he also completed postgraduate training in neurology. He then completed postgraduate studies in child neurophysiology and research at the University of Aix-Marseille, France, and in child neurology and psychiatry at the University of Pisa, Italy.
Through highly original pioneering scientific study Dr. Guerrini has contributed significantly to the clinical semiology, genetics, neurophysiology, and imaging of childhood epilepsies. Besides running a clinical service, he has established a diagnostic laboratory where he has collected and performed DNA sequencing on large patient cohorts. Dr. Guerrini’s rare expertise in combining the study of genetic patterns and MRI patterns has enabled him to make major contributions in describing subtypes of malformations in their specific clinical and genetic features, including double cortex syndrome, periventricular nodular heterotopias, polymycrogyrias, Dravet Syndrome, and other encephalopathies. As a result, Dr. Guerrini has served on a number of committees that have helped define the radiographic features of epileptic disorders. He is currently coordinating a major European research effort to improve diagnosis, prevention and treatment of children with difficult-to-treat epilepsy.
Dr. Guerrini has trained many neurologists in genetic techniques and clinical imaging. He has edited ten books, written 286 peer-reviewed papers, and served as an invited speaker at more than 350 meetings worldwide. His active service to the international epilepsy community also includes 12 academic and organizational scientific committee memberships and reviewer appointments in Europe, the U.S. and Japan. He is an appointed ILAE/BEA Ambassador for Epilepsy.
You can hear Drs. Miles and Guerrini speak about their research on Saturday, December 1st at 2:00 p.m. during their 30 minute Keynote Addresses. Be sure to honor them at the award presentation on Saturday, December 1st at 8:30 a.m., immediately prior to the Presidential Symposium.
The William G. Lennox Award is the Society’s most prestigious professional award and is funded by the William G. Lennox Trust Fund. The Fund was established in 1962 to advance and disseminate knowledge concerning epilepsy in all of its aspects – biological, clinical and social, and to promote better care and treatment for persons with epilepsy. This award, in the amount of $10,000, was established to recognize members of the Society, usually at a senior level, who have a record of lifetime contributions and accomplishments related to epilepsy.
AES is proud to present the 2012 Lennox Award to David Charles Taylor, M.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.C.Psych., Hon. F.R.C.P.C.H.
Professor David C Taylor is the retired Foundation Chair in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and lately Head of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences, in the University of Manchester UK. Following on his M.Phil. in Psychiatry in 1964, he researched for Murray Falconer, following-up, usually in their homes, 100 patients operated for TLE from 5 to 25 years post-op. with a 100 item schedule. Correlation analysis revealed important effects of Side, Sex, and Lesion type. “Focal Dysplasia” was noted as an anomaly in the routine Pathology reports. Publications of the work won the Gowers Memorial Prize of the British Epilepsy Association (1967). In 1967 he moved to Oxford University and The Park Hospital for Children which became the first National Centre for Children with Epilepsy. Sex Differences in the effects of Cerebral Lesions were widespread and shown to be related to the more rapid development of females (Gender Differences their Ontogeny and Significance 1971). In 1980 he was invited to Manchester where he worked with Paediatric Neurologists and undertook sessions at The David Lewis Centre for Epilepsy. In 1990 he retired but continued to work sessionally at The Department of Neurology at Great Ormond St Hospital and in Dublin monitoring the candidates for Epilepsy Surgery until 2003.
You can honor Prof. Taylor by attending the award presentation on Monday, December 3rd at 9:00 a.m., immediately prior to the Merritt-Putnam Symposium.
The J. Kiffin Penry Excellence in Epilepsy Care Award honors a clinician’s lifelong focus on and genuine concern for the patient with epilepsy. This award recognizes those whose work has had a major impact on patient care and improved the quality of life for persons with epilepsy as well as recognizing excellence in the care of persons with epilepsy.
Warren T. Blume, M.D., FRCP(C) is the recipient of the 2012 J. Kiffin Penry Excellence in Epilepsy Care Award. Dr. Blume is co-founder and first co-director of the first major Epilepsy Program in Ontario and the second in Canada and is Neurology Professor Emeritus at University of Western Ontario. He received his degree in medicine from McGill University in 1962 and trained in neurology and EEG in Montreal, Wisconsin, the Mayo Clinic and Paris. He joined the new Department of Clinical Neurological Sciences of Western University in London, Ontario in 1972 and helped established the second Epilepsy Program in Canada in 1977. He published the first EEG atlas ((Atlas of Pediatric Electroencephalography, Raven Press) in 1982 and the Atlas of Adult Electroencephalography, Raven Press in 1995. He participated in publication of Blume’s Atlas of Pediatric and Adult Electroencephalography, Lippincott, in 2011. With support of the Canadian Society of Clinical Neurophysiologists (CSCN) in 1991 he organized and chaired the first Canadian EEG examination system. He has served as a founding member of the Canadian League Against Epilepsy and served as president 1983-85.
His three principal areas of interest remain: 1) extending epilepsy care to under-serviced regions in Ontario, especially its North, 2) teaching multiple aspects of EEG to fellows and residents to prepare for their clinical careers and for the CSCN examinations, and 3) maintaining his epilepsy practice in London.
Dr. Blume will receive his award on Saturday, December 1st at 8:15 a.m., immediately prior to the AET Symposium.
The AES Service Award recognizes outstanding service in the field of epilepsy (including non-educational and non-scientific) and exemplary contributions to the welfare of the AES and its members.
Bruce P. Hermann, Ph.D., recipient of the 2012 Service Award, is Professor and Director of the Charles G. Matthews Neuropsychology Section in the Department of Neurology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. Throughout his career he has worked to improve understanding, treatment, and prevention of adverse neuropsychological, behavioral and quality of life outcomes of epilepsy and epilepsy surgery in children and adults.
He has served in a wide range of capacities for the AES including two terms on the Board of Directors; Living Well II Task Force Chair; Neurobehavioral Fellows Program Chair; Annual Course Committee; Annual Meeting Committee; Corporate Advisory Committee; Epilepsy Currents Contributing Editor; Nominating Committee; PEC Education; PEC Steering Committee; Practice Committee; QOL Survey Workgroup ; Research Initiative Fund Committee (twice); Research Recognition Awards; Scientific Program Committee (twice); Vision 2020; Neuropsychology Focus Group; and he was the 2005 Lennox Lecturer. He also served two terms on the Epilepsy Foundation Board of Directors and was Chair of the Professional Advisory Board (PAB), and Chair of the Research Committee of the BOD where he oversaw development of the special research initiatives, with many other assignments. He has served on the BOD and/or PAB for Epilepsy Foundation affiliates in Chicago, Memphis and Madison and has been active on ILAE neuropsychology working groups, and NINDS CDE development groups (quality of life, neuropsychology) as well as the Benchmark committees.
Dr. Hermann has served on the editorial boards of Epilepsia, Epilepsy and Behavior, Epilepsy Research, and the Journal of Epilepsy, and he is currently an Associate Editor of Epilepsia. He has served on grant review committees for the NIH, CDC, AES and EFA. He has maintained an active research program and has been NIH supported since 1998, currently investigating cognitive, brain, and behavioral development in children with new onset epilepsies.
You can congratulate Dr. Hermann at the award presentation on Friday, November 30 at 4:15 p.m. immediately prior to the Hoyer Lecture.