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The Edmond J. Safra Fellowship in Movement Disorders
The Edmond J. Safra Fellowship in Movement Disorders aims to grow the global base of movement disorder specialists by training movement disorder clinician-researchers who can provide expert care and lead scientific advances.
As the demand for movement disorder specialists increases, not enough neurologists are receiving vital training in Parkinson’s and related conditions. To address this need, The Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF), in collaboration with long-time partner the Edmond J. Safra Foundation, launched The Edmond J. Safra Fellowship in Movement Disorders. The program annually funds academic centres to train a new movement disorder clinician-researcher over a two-year period and is growing an international, collaborative network of next-generation leaders in Parkinson’s research and care. UCL is proud to be one of the first UK centre to host a class of The Edmond J. Safra Fellowship in Movement Disorders. Here, we introduce our two fellows – Dr Eoin Mulroy and Dr Francesca Magrinelli.
Dr Eoin Mulroy (Class of 2022)
Eoin completed medical school at University College Dublin and neurology residency at Auckland Hospital, New Zealand. Since 2018, he has worked as a movement disorder clinical and research fellow at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London, England. He is passionate about movement disorder neurology and actively involved in clinical research in the field.
- Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
I am a neurologist and movement disorder specialist with a passion for clinical neurology. My research focus centres around clinically-driven research questions, aiming to provide meaningful improvements to patients. I am however at my happiest in the clinic, speaking with patients and doing my best to make a positive impact in their lives.
- Can you tell us a bit about your current research?
My current research, which forms part of a doctoral research project, focuses on predicting dystonia outcomes following deep brain stimulation. Through integration of clinical, radiological, neurophysiological and genetic data, I hope to build an accurate predictive model of dystonia improvement in DBS, and to reduce the uncertainty associated with this procedure.
- What has the fellowship meant to you?
The fellowship has allowed me the opportunity to pursue my research goals while simultaneously providing broad, yet comprehensive, clinical movement disorder training. It has also allowed me to connect with other fellows and movement disorder groups around the world and hopefully set-up enduring multi-centre collaborations.
- How does or will your work help patients?
My research will hopefully help to optimise patient selection for invasive procedures such as deep brain stimulation in dystonia, thus allowing the treatment to be offered to those likely to benefit most, while avoiding unnecessary surgical risks in those who will obtain little benefit.
- What do you hope to do in the future?
I hope to become a movement disorder clinician-academic with a strong patient-centred research focus aimed at providing answers to everyday clinical uncertainties.
Dr Francesca Magrinelli (Class of 2024)
- Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
I am a hugely aspirational and hardworking neurology specialist and postdoctoral research fellow, with a clinical and scientific background in movement disorders and neurogenetics of movement disorders and neurodegeneration. My enthusiasm for movement disorders is deeply rooted in my clinical and academic career so far. It was forged during my general neurology training and PhD in Neurosciences at the University of Verona, Italy. My growing passion for the unmatched complexity of clinicogenetic correlations in movement disorders led me to spend the international mobility period of my PhD under the supervision of Prof. Bhatia and Prof. Houlden and then to apply for the MJFF Edmond J. Safra fellowship in Movement Disorders.
- Can you tell us a bit about your current research?
My clinical and research activities mainly focus on rare complex movement disorders, with particular interests in clinicogenetic correlations in complex parkinsonism, dystonia, and chorea as well as the application of next-generation sequencing techniques to dissect the genetic landscape of these disorders. Over the last two years, I have tried to establish the genetic diagnosis in several patients with rare movement disorders, in particular combined and complex dystonia, which was the topic of my PhD. My research has mainly focused on data from whole-exome and whole-genome sequencing. In parallel, I have reviewed phenotypic data and assessed clinicogenetic correlations in patients with complex movement disorders as part of the multidisciplinary team for interpreting preliminary findings from the 100,000 Genomes Project. I have established a research international collaboration that enables colleagues across the world to recruit patients and families with movement disorders for whole-exome sequencing which I’ve carried out personally. I am leading an international group to dissect the genetic basis of hereditary geniospasm in the context of the SolveRD Horizon 2020.
- What has the fellowship meant to you?
The prestigious MJFF Edmond J. Safra fellowship in Movement Disorders promises to amalgamate my dedication to patient care with fascinating opportunities of translational research with the ground-breaking clinical and research teams led by movement disorder specialists at the UCL Institute of Neurology. In the context of my postdoctoral period, this fellowship is enabling me to refine my clinical competency on movement disorders and to continue my translational research in an excellent movement disorder centre. This will allow me to collect preliminary data to apply for a starting grant in order to complete my transition from junior to independent researcher.
- How does or will your work help patients?
My clinical and research activity is focused on deep phenotyping and genotype-phenotype correlations for a fine-grained sub-classification of movement disorders and the translation of this knowledge into precision medicine. This has a dual purpose, that is dissecting their genetic bases and defective biological pathways to promote the development of disease-modifying treatments as well as identifying more homogeneous patient groups to implement targeted therapy.
- What do you hope to do in the future?
I hope to become a clinical academic who masters the diagnosis and therapeutic management of patients with movement disorders and has a bridging role between clinical practice and the neurogenetics lab for both diagnostic and research purposes. With this aim in mind, over the next few years, I intend to refine my clinical competency in this world-leading movement disorder centre which offers the opportunity to diagnose even rare complex movement disorders and gives access to advanced and experimental treatments.