Dr. Angela Genge

Newfoundland born, Dr. Angela Genge completed her medical degree at the Memorial University of Newfoundland. She completed her Canadian and American certifications in Internal Medicine and Neurology prior to completing a fellowship in neuromuscular diseases. She joined the staff of the Montreal Neurological Hospital in 1994 and became Director of the ALS Clinic in 1998.

Her involvement in clinical research began while still a resident in Neurology. She began assisting Dr. Gordon Francis, the founding director of the CRU at the Montreal Neurological Institute in early trials in both Multiple Sclerosis, and NeuroAIDS.

Although her interests in neurology focused on neuromuscular disease, she continued working with the CRU and brought in clinical trials in more neuromuscular disorders such as ALS, Myopathies, Neuropathies and Myasthenia Gravis, and now Pain.

Dr. Genge was appointed Director of the CRU in December 2004 and plans to expand both the number and scope of clinical trials in neurological disease.

Dr. Yves Lapierre

Montreal-born, Dr. Yves Lapierre obtained his medical degree Cum Laude from Université de Montreal and completed his residency in neurology at McGill University. After spending 2 years in neuroimmunology at Massachussets General Hospital in Boston, he returned to the Sacré-Coeur hospital and Institute Armand Frappier in 1975. Dr. Lapierre joined Dr. Bert Cosgrove at the MS clinic in 1979. In 1981, he became staff neurologist at the Montreal General Hospital and a permanent member of the McGill community.

Dr. Lapierre has been interested in research relating to Multiple Sclerosis since his early years in training. He has been involved in clinical trials in MS for more than 20 years and believes that clinical research should be intimately linked to more basic research such as immunology, imaging, molecular biology and other emerging fields.

He was appointed Director of the MS Clinic in 1999. His hopes are to make the clinic more accessible to patients, to broaden its team services and possibly expand into the community while significantly contributing to knowledge about the natural history of the disease as well as to clinical and fundamental research.

Dr. Douglas Arnold

Dr. Douglas Arnold, is a neurologist. His personal research interests are centered on clinical trials in MS and the use of advanced neuro-imaging techniques as surrogate outcome measures for clinical trials and to better understand the evolution of neurological diseases and the mechanisms responsible.

Dr. Amit Bar-Or

Amit Bar-Or, a Clinician-Scientist, is Associate Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery at McGill University/MUHC, where he works as a neurologist and neuro-immunologist. He is also an Associate member of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at McGill and a member of the MUHC Center for Host-Resistance. His integrated activities at the MNI involve application of fundamental lab discoveries and novel experimental therapies to patients with autoimmune and neurological diseases.

His laboratory at the MNI studies basic principles of human immune regulation and immune-neural interactions, and how these relate to physiologic processes, injury and repair in the human central nervous system (CNS). Fundamental discoveries include elucidating basic mechanisms of antigen-specific T cell responses to the CNS, novel immune regulatory roles of B cell subsets in both health and disease, and molecular mechanisms underlying normal and pathologic interactions between immune cells and CNS glial cells and neurons. The prototypic human inflammatory CNS disease is multiple sclerosis (MS), though ongoing studies of immune-neural interaction are relevant to understanding mechanisms of CNS injury and repair, as well as potential to use immune responses therapeutically, in other common conditions such as CNS trauma and neurological degenerative diseases including ALS, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s.

Dr. Bar-Or serves as Scientific Director of the Clinical Research Unit at the MNI, where he also founded and directs the Experimental Therapeutics Program (ETP; http://www.mcgill.ca/etp). He is co-principle investigator of the Canadian Pediatric Demyelinating Disease Study - a prospective initiative supported by the Research Foundation of the MSSC, combining clinical, immunological and neuroimaging parameters to define early disease mechanisms in human CNS inflammation. He is the principle investigator for the CIHR/EndMS New Emerging Team (NET) in Immune Regulation and Biomarker Development. This NET is established to study pathophysiologic mechanisms in a coordinated fashion across several human autoimmune diseases, in both children and adults. Dr. Bar-Or’s lab also coordinates immune reconstitution studies of the Canadian MS BMT Group - also supported by the MSSC Research Foundation. His research has been further supported by grants from the CIHR, the MSSC, the Wadsworth Foundation (USA) and the NIH supported Immune Tolerance Network (ITN). Dr. Bar-Or holds a McGill William Dawson Scholar Chair and is recipient of an MNI Killam Award, FRSQ 'Chercheur Boursier Clinicien' Award and the MSSC Don Paty 'Career Scientist' Award.

Dr. Jack Antel

Dr. Jack Antel, a neurologist, examines how the immune system interacts with cells in the central nervous system. His work deals with immune-mediated neurological diseases, especially multiple sclerosis. Dr. Antel's studies with human tissues are often designed in parallel with the mice models used by his colleague, Dr. Trevor Owens, who studies experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE). Another focus is trying to understand how cells of the immune system injure oligodendrocytes and their myelin membranes. Dr. Antel is also examining how glial cells (astrocytes and microglia) serve as antigen-presenting cells that regulate T-cell reactivity.

Dr. William Barkas

Dr. William Barkas is a neurologist who obtained his medical degree from McGill University. After completing residency training at McGill he was offered a position at the MS Clinic by Dr. Bert Cosgrove and joined the clinic in 1981. His research interest includes clinical trials and he has been participating in the MS Clinic studies, originally in collaboration with Dr. Gordon Francis, the first director of the CRU.

He has also been active in the field of neurologic rehabilitation and functions as a consultant at several Montreal rehabilitation hospitals, as well as an outpatient rehabilitation center. He is a member of the research committee of the latter institution.

Revised August 06, 2010