Program Book - American Epilepsy Society

AES SPECIAL RECOGNITION2008 Early Career Physician-Scientist AwardsFriday, December 5 – 3:30 p.m. - 3:45 p.m., Ballroom 6E(immediately preceding the Hoyer Lecture)Supported by the Milken Family FoundationThis program seeks to encourage the development of new therapies for epilepsy by providing research training for physicians early in their academic career. These awards are primarilyfor investigators whose research interests will potentially affect epilepsy patients in the near term. Applications are reviewed on the basis of: the applicant’s commitment to a researchcareer, the training record of the mentor and epilepsy center and the quality and relevance of the research project for developing cures for epilepsy.David K. Chen, M.D.Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, Baylor College of MedicineMentor: Harvey S. Levin, Ph.D.Diffusion Tensor and Magnetization Transfer Imaging of Mesial Temporal Pathologies inPosttraumatic EpilepsyAutumn Klein, M.D., Ph.D.Brigham and Women’s HospitalMentor: Edward B. Bromfield, M.D.Obstetrical and Neurological Complications in Women with Epilepsy: A Prospective StudyTobias Loddenkemper, M.D.Children’s Hospital of BostonMentor: Frances E. Jensen, M.D.Glutamate and GABA Receptor Subunit Changes During Status Epilepticus in ChildrenJoseph Parvizi, M.D., Ph.D.Stanford UniversityMentor: Robert S. Fisher, M.D., Ph.D.The Neuroanatomy of Seizure PropagationEpilepsy Research Recognition AwardsMonday, December 8 – 9:00 a.m. - 9:15 a.m., Ballroom 6E(immediately preceding the Presidential Symposium)The American Epilepsy Society Epilepsy Research Recognition Awards are given annually to active scientists and clinicians working in all aspects of epilepsy research. They are designedto recognize professional excellence reflected in a distinguished history of research or important promise for the improved understanding, diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy. Theawards of $10,000 each are part of the AES grant and fellowship programs.Award for Basic ScienceFrances E. Jensen, M.D.Award for Clinical ScienceAnne T. Berg, Ph.D.Frances E. Jensen, M.D., is a professor of neurology at Children’s Hospital Boston andHarvard Medical School, where she is also director of epilepsy research. She received anM.D. from Cornell University Medical College in 1983. She performed her internship inInternal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and her assistant residencyin Neurology at The Harvard Longwood Neurology Training Program, in Boston, where shewas also Chief Resident.Dr. Jensen, a recipient of the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, has identified uniquemechanisms involved in seizure activity and injury in the developing brain, leading to newcandidate therapies in development for clinical trials in newborns. Dr. Jensen’s researchfocuses on mechanisms of epileptogenesis and cortical injury in the developing brain, withspecific emphasis on neonates. Her work has yielded new candidate therapies fortreatments presently under development for clinical trials. In addition, her work exploreshow seizures alter neuronal networks to result in learning deficits, neuropsychiatricsymptoms and autism.Dr. Jensen also is a practicing physician in neurology at both Children’s Hospital andBrigham and Women’s Hospital. She is Chair of the Program Committee at the Society forNeuroscience, past Chair of the AES Council on Education and of the Advocacy Committee.She is currently serving as a member of the Board of Directors. In addition she serves onseveral editorial boards as an ad hoc reviewer and is an Editorial Board member for Annalsof Neurology.Anne T. Berg, Ph.D. received her doctorate in epidemiology from Yale University in 1986.Since then, her research has focused on the clinical epidemiology of seizure disorders withan emphasis on delineating short- and long-term seizure outcomes as well as thebehavioral, cognitive and social co-morbidities frequently associated with epilepsy. Herresearch has encompassed the prognosis following febrile seizures, their relation to newonset epilepsy, and their prognostic significance with respect to intractable epilepsy and theoutcomes of epilepsy surgery. She has also worked extensively on the prognosis following afirst unprovoked seizure, the role of syndromes in studying seizure and other outcomes inepilepsy, intractable epilepsy, and epilepsy surgery. She is studying early imaging markersand clinical correlates of mesial temporal lobe epilepsy as well as studying long-termsocial, educational, and behavioral difficulties in young adults who had epilepsy aschildren. Dr. Berg has had 20 years of continuous funding from the National Institute ofNeurological Diseases and Stroke, including a Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award in2007 to pursue these areas of research. She has published extensively in the field ofepilepsy.Dr. Berg is finishing a term as an associate editor of Epilepsia and is the current Chair ofthe ILAE Commission on Classification and Terminology. She is also a co-chair for theNINDS benchmark on co-morbidities in epilepsy.8AES 62 ND ANNUAL MEETING 2nd Biennial North American Regional Epilepsy Congresswww.AESNET.org