Neuroimmunology

Dr. Bibiana Bielekova is the Chief of the Neuroimmunological Diseases Section of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She graduated from the Comenius University School of Medicine in Bratislava, Slovakia and undertook her neurology residency at the Boston University and neuroimmunology fellowship at the Neuroimmunology Branch of the NIH. She then became Associate professor of neurology with tenure and the Director of the Waddell Center for Multiple Sclerosis (MS) at the University of Cincinnati and returned to the NIH in 2008. She performs investigator-initiated clinical trials in MS and her laboratory studies pathophysiological mechanisms responsible for central nervous system tissue destruction and reparative processes in neuroimmunological diseases. Dr. Gary Birnbaum is a graduate of Hobart College and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He did his neurology residency at Cornell University School of Medicine with Drs. Fred Plum and Jerome Posner and his immunology fellowship with Dr. Gregory Siskind, also at Cornell University School of Medicine. Dr. Birnbaum left academia in 2000 to establish a large MS specialty clinic with Minneapolis Clinic of Neurology. He retired from clinical care in 2016 but continues to be active in MS-related issues, serving as a consultant and running a patient-oriented blog on research related to MS (msresearchupdate.com). Dr. Robert P Lisak is Parker Webber Chair in Neurology, Professor of Neurology and Professor of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology at Wayne State University and served as Chair of Neurology from 1987- 2012. Dr Lisak received his undergraduate degree from the College of Arts and Sciences of New York University and obtained his MD at the College of Physicians & Surgeons of Columbia University. Dr Lisak's clinical and basic research interests have included myasthenia gravis, multiple sclerosis and related disorders, immune-mediated neuropathies, and myopathies as well as neurologic manifestations of systemic immune-mediated diseases. Dr Lisak served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Neurological Sciences from 1997-2013.