2012 Annual Conference
June 8-10, 2012, Hilton McLean Tysons Corner Hotel, McLean, VA
Please join us in the lovely Washington, DC/Northern VA area for our 2012 Annual Conference. It will be held on June 8-9 at the Hilton in McLean, VA near the Tysons Galleria shopping center.
The Washington, DC area offers many tourist attractions - museums, momuments, art galleries and more. This website also offers accessibility information. A TeamWalk will be held on Sunday on the National Mall.
The Hilton McLean was chosen because of its location, number of accessible sleeping rooms and reasonable cost. All rooms are $109/night. To reserve a room online, please go to Hilton McLean SPF Reservations.
The conference begins with a Friday night dinner and a presentation. The conference continues on Saturday with several topics ranging from research to therapy. There will also be a range of accessible vehicles on display in the parking lot.
Nazem Atassi, MD
Dr. Atassi, an Assistant in Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Instructor at
Harvard Medical School in Boston Massachusetts, received his MD in 2002 from Damascus University and
completed his Neurology training at Boston University Medical Center. Dr. Atassi completed his Fellowship
in Neuromuscular disorders and Clinical Trials at Massachusetts general Hospital. He received his Masters
of Medical Science in Clinical Investigation in 2010 from Harvard Medical School. Dr. Atassi is Co- Chairman
of the Spastic Paraplegia/Northeast ALS Consortium (NEALS) Task Force and he serves on the Advocacy subcommittee
of the ALS Research Group (ALSRG). In 2010, Dr. Atassi received the MIT 100K Life Science Award from Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT). He is the Primary Investigator for several research projects focusing on ALS clinical
trials and Neuroimaging.
Craig Blackstone, MD, PhD
Dr. Blackstone received BS and MS degrees in 1987 from the University of Chicago and MD and
PhD degrees in 1994 from Johns Hopkins University. His graduate studies, in the laboratory of Richard
Huganir, were on the structure and regulation of glutamate receptors, for which he received the David
Israel Macht Award. After a neurology residency at the Harvard-Longwood Neurology Program, Dr. Blackstone
completed a fellowship in clinical movement disorders at the Massachusetts General Hospital. During this
time he also conducted postdoctoral research with Morgan Sheng at Harvard Medical School, investigating
the functions of proteins implicated in hereditary dystonias. Dr. Blackstone joined the NINDS as an
investigator in 2001. His laboratory investigates the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying
hereditary movement disorders. He is also a member of the SPF Scientific Advisory Board.
Corey Braastad, PhD
Dr. Braastad, a member of the Board of Directors for the SPF, is also currently Scientific Director for Athena Diagnostics. Athena Diagnostics is a clinical diagnostics company specializing in the diagnosis of rare neurological, renal and endocrine disorders. At Athena he leads the R&D department to (1) develop and launch new diagnostic assays, (2) routinely run diagnostic tests on patient samples, and (3) improve the quality of diagnostic tests by improving result interpretation. He is currently also leading Athena Insight, a patient service to assess pathogenicity of DNA sequence variants in real time. Prior to working at Athena as Scientific Director, Dr. Braastad worked in the roles of R&D Scientist and Operations Lab Manager. Dr. Braastad received his doctoral degree from Brown University in the Molecular and Cellular Biology and Biochemistry (MC&B) Department working on defining a DNA damage inducible gene promoter. He then worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in the Department of Cell Biology to define the cell-cycle regulated histone H4 regulatory elements.
Anthony (Tony) Chiodo, MD
Dr. Chiodo is co-director for U-M SCIMS and has been the clinical director of Spinal
Cord Injury Medicine at the University of Michigan since 2002. He has worked on the
U-M SCIMS research projects, Wellness in SCI and Predictors of Health, and Quality of
Life in Persons with Ventilator Assistance after SCI. He has published several manuscripts
on pain management, wellness in SCI, and is preparing several manuscripts on ventilator weaning
after SCI. Dr. Chiodo is the primary attending physician for SCI services in the UMHS Adult
Rehabilitation Unit, coordinating all clinical services.
Featured Speaker: John Fink, MD
Dr. Fink is the Scientific Medical Advisor for the SPF. Board-certified
in neurology and medical genetics, Dr. Fink received his medical degree in 1980 from the Medical
College of Ohio. Following internship at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, he completed
a neurology residency in 1984 at the University of Virginia.
As a Professor of Neurology at the University of Michigan he directs the Neurogenetic Disorders Program.
He directs bacis science laboratory research focused on identifying genes and mechanisms responsible for
age-dependent neurological degeneration; and on developing treatments for these conditions.
He was the recipient of an SPF research award in 2011, 2006 and 2003.
Mary Kay Floeter, MD, PhD
Dr. Floeter received her MD and PhD at Washington University in St. Louis and completed residency training
in Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco. After postdoctoral work at UCSF, she came to
NIH as a senior staff fellow in the Laboratory of Neural Control to study mammalian spinal cord circuits
controlling movement. She joined the EMG section as a clinical associate in Clinical Neurophysiology three
years later and has served as Chief of the NINDS EMG Section since 1996 and as the NINDS Deputy Clinical
Director since 2006. Dr. Floeter’s recent research has been dedicated to analyzing changes in motor neurons
and spinal circuits in patients with disorders that disrupt the corticospinal motor system.
Mark Weber
The SPF receives many more research grants than it can fund. It is important that it fund projects that are scientifically sound. Mark will explain to us the way our research grants are evaluated by our Scientific Advisory Board, a group of neurology specialists who tell us which research proposals are most worthy of our funding. He will also explain how the Board of Directors then selects those grants that will be funded.
Mark is a founding Board member, co-chaired the Foundation Steering Committee and served as the first SPF President. He is an attorney with eleven years experience as an Assistant Attorney General and Assistant District Attorney. Mark has been an active SPF community leader since 1999, launching and managing PLS Friends, and serving as editor of a PLS newsletter. Mark holds a BA in economics and psychology and a JD. Mark and his wife and two boys live in Sherman, CT. Mark serves the SPF as Legal Counsel and also chairs the Research Committee.
download/print hotel/transportation/parking information