Lifetime Achievement Award
IAPRD 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award
Dr. Daniel Truong
Award Lecture: Sunday, 19 May 2024 during the opening ceremony
Biosketch
Dr. Daniel Truong is a graduate of Ludwig Albert University in Freiburg, Germany. He was certified in both neurology and psychiatry (Germany) before moving to the US, where he completed his neurology training at the Medical University of South Carolina. Dr. Truong completed a 3-year fellowship at Columbia University and the National Hospital for Nervous Disease at Queen Square, London, UK, under Professors Stanley Fahn and David Marsden.
Dr. Truong founded the Parkinson’s and Movement Disorders program at the University of California, Irvine and left in 1997 to form the Parkinson and Movement Disorder Institute nearby. He developed the animal model of myoclonus, which has been used to test antimyoclonic drugs. Dr. Truong was one of the earlier investigators of botulinum toxin prior to development by pharmaceutical companies, participating in its early use in spasmodic dysphonia and development of other new toxins. Together with his dystonia patients, Dr. Truong founded the National Spasmodic Dysphonia Association.
Dr. Truong has published more than 200 scientific publications and book chapters and 6 books. His book on botulinum toxin has become a bestselling medical title at Cambridge University Press and is currently in its third edition. He is the Associate Editor of the Journal of Neurological Sciences and Founding Editor of the Journal of Clinical Parkinsonism and Related Disorders, and serves on the editorial board of many neurology journals.
Dr. Truong was President of the International Association for Parkinsonism and Related Disorders (IAPRD) from 2015 to 2023, where he led its incorporation in the USA and guided the current structure. During his time at the IAPRD, Dr. Truong was known for his outreach to the developing world where he is from. Raising funds from various sources with the assistance of his wife, Diane Truong, through her own foundation, the IAPRD reached the furthest corners of the world including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Mongolia. Dr. Truong also founded the Tardive Study Group consisting of neurologists and psychiatrists interested in tardive dyskinesia, which has been anchored in the IAPRD for the past 3 years. Dr. Truong has served on various committees of the IAPRD, the American Academy of Neurology, and the World Federation of Neurology. He has lectured in over 25 countries mostly in the developing world.