Speakers

Dr. Teepu Siddique is an internationally recognized clinician-researcher in neuromuscular medicine. A gold medalist in botany from Islamia College, Lahore, Pakistan and a graduate of Dow Medical College, Karachi, Pakistan, Dr. Siddique completed a flexible internship in Perth-Amboy, NJ, followed by a residency in Neurology at the University of Medicine and Dentistry, New Jersey. He was a fellow in electrophysiology at Cornell and a Fogarty International Scholar at the National Institute for Neurologic Diseases and Stroke. He has held faculty appointments as physician-investigator at University of Southern California, Duke University and, since 1991, here at Northwestern University, where he was appointed the first Abbott Laboratories Susan and Duane Burnham Research Professor.

Currently he directs the Division of Neuromuscular Medicine. His research interest include disorders of the motor system and frontal lobe dementias. He led the team that identified the first causative gene in Lou Gehrig disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS) and developed the first genetic model of neurodegenerative disease, which is still the most widely used model for study of ALS. He continues to lead an active research team that has identified additional genes that cause inherited ALS, hereditary spastic paraplegia, mitochondrial myopathy, and inherited neuropathy.

His current research focuses on the role of environmentally responsive genes in motor neuron degeneration and the use of induced pluripotent stem cells derived from patient skin cells to develop rational therapy for ALS and related disorders. His research has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health for his entire 24 year career. He was the first recipient of the Sheila Essey Award awarded by the American Academy of Neurology, given for his seminal work in ALS genetics. Additional honors have included the Hope Through Caring Award from the Les Turner ALS Foundation, the Forbes Norris Award given by the International Alliance for Motor Neuron Disease, as well as numerous community awards. He is the author of more than two hundred peer reviewed publications. He serves on the editorial board of several specialty journals and NIH grant reviewing panels.