IAPRD 2025 Award Winners

Award Lecture: Thursday, 8 May 2025 during the opening ceremony

Dr. EK Tan is a senior consultant neurologist and clinician scientist at the Singapore General Hospital, National Neuroscience Institute (NNI), a professor at Duke-NUS Medical School and an honorary professor at Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine. He is the Director of Research at NNI and principal investigator of the Neurogenetics Laboratory. Dr. Tan acquired his medical degree in Singapore and underwent further clinical and laboratory fellowship training at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. He is a member and fellow of the Royal Colleges of Physicians in United Kingdom and a member of the American Neurological Association.

Dr. Tan specializes in movement disorders. His primary research interests are in genetic epidemiology and the molecular mechanism underpinning disease causing genes in Parkinson’s and essential tremor. He is also actively engaged in clinical trials, neuroimaging, quality of life and pharmacogenetic studies in various neurological diseases.

Melvin Yahr Award

Award Lecture: Thursday, 8 May 2025 during the opening ceremony

Dr. Caroline Tanner has a clinical practice that specializes in movement disorders. Her research interests include the descriptive epidemiology, environmental and genetic determinants, biomarkers, early detection, nonmotor disease features and clinical trials for the secondary prevention, disease modification and symptomatic treatment of movement disorders. Her current research projects include conducting participant reported-outcomes, harnessing technology to increase participation in clinical research and access to care, the early identification of persons at risk of PD and the design and performance of trials to prevent PD. She leads the Fox Insight online study and is a co-principal investigator of the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative study, the Trial of Parkinson’s and Zolendronate (TOPAZ) study, the MICRO-PD study and studies of military service-related exposures and PD risk in Camp Lejeune and the Millennium Cohort. Dr. Tanner has been fortunate to mentor talented scientists from many countries, who themselves are now leading researchers and educators worldwide.