Prof. Stanley Fahn Columbia University, USA

Stanley Fahn, MD is the H. Houston Merritt Professor of Neurology and Director of the Center for Parkinson's Disease and Other Movement Disorders at Columbia University. He is the Scientific Director of the Parkinson's Disease Foundation. He has served as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Dystonia... read moreClinical Medical Research Foundation and is currently a lifetime honorary member of its Board of Directors. This foundation honored him by naming a fellowship in his name. Dr. Fahn had served as the founding director of the Dystonia Clinical Research Center at Columbia University funded by this foundation. He was Vice-President, subsequently President- Elect, and was then President of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) from 2001-2003. He has served as Second Vice-President of the American Neurological Association. He served on several committees, including chairman of some, for both these professional organizations. He founded and served as the Chairman of the Steering Committee of the Movement Disorder Society. After its constitution was approved, he was elected its first president. The Movement Disorder Society, an international organization of professionals active in this subspecialty has honored him by naming one of the two principal lectureships at its annual International Congresses after him. He was the founding co-editor of the journal Movement Disorders, and served in this capacity for the first 10 years of the journal's existence, until 1996. Dr. Fahn has published many scientific papers on Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders. In December 2002, he was listed as one of the most highly cited authors by the Institute of Scientific Information (www.isihighlycited.com). He has been invited to write reviews and chapters and to lecture nationally and internationally on the diagnosis, classification and treatment of a variety of movement disorders. He has participated in clinical trials of many pharmacotherapeutic agents for Parkinson's disease. On dystonia, Dr. Fahn founded and directed the first Dystonia Clinical Research Center in the United States. This Center was responsible for determining the autosomal dominant inheritance pattern of torsion dystonia and for mapping the genes for this disorder, as well as the genes for dopa-responsive dystonia and for X-linked dystonia-parkinsonism. Dr. Fahn has received numerous honors and delivered many titled lectures at a variety of universities around the world. The American Academy of Neurology honored him with the Wartenberg Award for outstanding clinical research in 1986, the first Movement Disorder Prize for outstanding contributions in this field in 1997, and their A. B. Baker Award for outstanding educator in neurology in 1996. The American Neurological Association awarded him the first Soriano Lectureship for excellence in research; the American Parkinson Disease Association, their Springer Prize; and the Blepharospasm Association enrolled him in their Hall Of Fame. He received the Srinivasan Award in Chennai, India, in February 2002. In October 2002 he was elected a member of the Institute of Medicine of the U.S. National Academies. In November 2002, he was elected an Honorary Member of the Movement Disorder Society. In October 2003, he was elected an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Neurology. Dr. Fahn has been elected an Honorary Member of several foreign neurological societies: Associacion Colombiana de Neurologia, 1986; Sociedad Espanol de Neurologia, 1987; ''Membre d'honneur a titre etranger'' (Foreign Honorary Member) of the Societe Francaise de Neurologie, 2002, and the Sociedad Neurologica Argentina, 2004.