Learn From the Experts

Mel Berger is a Senior Director, Medical Research Strategy at CSL and Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics and Pathology, Case Western Reserve University. He earned his undergraduate, medical and PhD (in Biochemistry) degrees at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. He completed his internship and residency in pediatrics at Boston ChildrenÔÇÖs Hospital. He did an allergy-clinical immunology fellowship at NIH, and is Board Certified in Pediatrics and Allergy-Immunology. He served as Assistant Chief of Allergy-Immunology at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and had an initial faculty appointment at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences.

In 1984, he returned to Cleveland and joined the faculty of Case Western Reserve as Chief of the Division of Allergy-Immunology at Rainbow, Babies and ChildrenÔÇÖs Hospital and he rose to Professor of Pediatrics, Pathology and General Medical Sciences (Oncology). In 2008, Dr. Berger joined CSL Behring, but he continues to hold a faculty appointment at Case. He served for more than 20 years in the US Army and Army Reserve, including commanding a hospital unit during the peace effort in former Yugoslavia, and retired from the Army as a Colonel.

Dr. Berger's research has focused on control of inflammatory responses and on antigen-antibody and complement interactions, particularly in primary immune deficiency diseases and cystic fibrosis. He has been a leader in research on the clinical use of immunoglobulins and played a key role in developing the use of portable pumps to give IgG subcutaneously. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers on his research, as well as numerous chapters and review articles.

Dr. Berger is a Fellow of the American Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology, the American Pediatric Society, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. He has been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Society for Pediatric Research, and has served as a Director of the American Board of Allergy and Immunology and on numerous FDA and NIH panels.

David R. Cornblath received his MD from Case Western Reserve University and completed his residency and fellowship at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania under Prof. A.K. Asbury. He is Professor of Neurology at Johns Hopkins University and Director of the Neurology EMG Laboratory at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. His clinical and research interests are peripheral neuropathies.

Prof. Cornblath has co-authored a book entitled Diagnosis and Management of Peripheral Nerve Disorders and written over 200 articles and chapters. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Peripheral Nervous System, Secretary/ Treasurer of the Peripheral Nerve Society, a member of the Board of Directors of the GBS/CIDP Foundation International and the Foundation for Peripheral Neuropathy, and Chair of one of the Hopkins Institutional Review Boards.

Dr. Karissa Gable is a Neuromuscular specialist at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and pursued a residency in Neurology at Northwestern University and a Neuromuscular fellowship at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Gable is board certified in Neurology, Electrodiagnostic Medicine and Neuromuscular Disorders.

Dr. Gable has a special interest in all types of peripheral neuropathies, particularly GBS and CIDP, but also cares for many patients with myasthenia gravis and muscle disorders. Other duties include Directorship of the Neuromuscular Fellowship Program at Duke University.

Dr. Hans Katzberg is a neuromuscular specialist and clinical investigator at the University Health Network / Toronto General Hospital and has been on faculty at the University of Toronto as Assistant Professor of Neurology. He obtained his undergraduate and medical degrees at the University of British Columbia and did his residency in neurology at the University of Toronto where he was chief resident from 2006-7. He later completed fellowships in neuromuscular medicine and neurophysiology (EMG) at Stanford University, where he also obtained a MasterÔÇÖs degree in clinical epidemiology.

He has been on staff at the Ellen and Martin Prosserman Center for Neuromuscular Diseases at TGH since 2010, where he runs neuromuscular and EMG clinics, is active in training of neurology and physiatry residents / fellows and conducts clinical research. He is cross-appointed to Sick Kids Hospital where he coordinates a transition clinic for young adults with neuromuscular conditions. In 2014 he took over as fellowship program director at the University of Toronto for the Division of Neurology. He is Associate Editor for the Canadian Journal of Neurological Science and co-chair for research in the Canadian Neuromuscular Disease Network. He has a research focus in outcome measures and clinical trials in immune mediated neuromuscular junction disorders such as myasthenia gravis and neuropathies such as CIDP.

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.

Nabil Moumane is the Director of Medical Affairs and Pharmacology at CSL Behring. He completed his medical training at the University of Casablanca in Morocco. He also has a Master of Biomedical and Physical Engineering of Health in the University of Saints-Pères, Paris, and Biostatistics for the Health and Biological Sciences in Pierre at Marie Curie University in Paris. Before joining the pharmaceutical industry he spent 3 years in Emergency department. He gained over 10 years of industry experience in Medical Affairs departments first in central nervous system and psychiatry and then, from 2010 he joined CSL Behring as a medical manager in immunology.

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.