Multifocal Motor Neuropathy

Jonathan S. Katz, MD, is the Director, Forbes Norris MDA/ALS Research Center at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, California. He received his BA from The Johns Hopkins University and his medical degree from Tulane University School of Medicine. He subsequently completed his neurology training at the University of Washington and neuromuscular diseases at the University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center.

Dr. Katz is board certified in in Psychiatry and Neurology and specializes in the management and treatment of neuromuscular diseases such as CIDP, GBS, ALS, myasthenia gravis and multifocal motor neuropathy. He also sits on the medical advisory board of the Guillain-Barre CIDP Foundation International, California State Myasthenia Gravis Association and Myasthenia Gravis Association of America. He has authored over 80 publications, written 7 text book chapters and has participated in more than 23 Investigator Initiated Studies over the past 10 years, and has been national PI in several ALS trials. Notably among his many contributions, Dr. Katz has been the first author of several pioneering clinical papers that have focused on novel presentations which have become part of the neurological nomenclature including distal acquired demyelinating sensory polyneuorpathy (DADS), isolated neck extensor myopathy (INEM), multifocal acquired motor axonopathy (MAMA), and brachial amyotrophic diplegia (BAD).

Richard A. Lewis, MD is Professor of Neurology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California where he directs the EMG laboratory and co-directs the neuromuscular clinical program. He is Director of the GBS-CIDP Foundation Center of Excellence at Cedars-Sinai. Prior to his move to California in 2013, he was Associate Chair of Neurology at Wayne State University where he had been for 19 years.

He has been on the Board of Directors of the Peripheral Nerve Society, and on the Steering Committee of the Inflammatory Neuropathy Consortium. He is on the Medical Advisory Boards of the GBS-CIDP Foundation and the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation. He has been involved as an investigator, steering committee member and DSMB member in clinical trials in a number of immune mediated disorders including CIDP, myasthenia gravis and multifocal motor neuropathy.

Claudia Sommer is a Professor of Neurology at the University of W├╝rzburg, Germany. She received training in psychiatry, neuropathology, experimental anesthesia, and neurology. At the University of W├╝rzburg she serves as a consultant in neurology, organizes an outpatient clinic for patients with pain, and leads the Peripheral Nerve Laboratory. Professor SommerÔÇÖs research interests include: the role of cytokines in the pathophysiology of pain, improvement and standardization of diagnostics in neuropathies, and the pathophysiology of antibody-mediated diseases. She has written more than 150 original research papers and more than 100 reviews and book chapters, and has edited several books.

Professor Sommer is active in the development of national and international guidelines on treatment of peripheral neuropathies, nerve and skin biopsies, and treatment of fibromyalgia and neuropathic and facial pain. She is a reviewer for scientific journals and the German Research Foundation (DFG), and serves on the editorial boards of several scientific journals.