Prof. Eduardo Tolosa

Award Lecture (Sunday, 19 May 2024 during the opening ceremony):

New steps towards preventing Parkinson disease

Biosketch
Eduardo Tolosa obtained his MD degree from the University of Barcelona and received his neurological training at the University of Minnesota in the United States. He is a founding member and past President of the Movement Disorder Society and past President of the Spanish and of the European Neurological Society. In 1993 he founded the University of Barcelona Brain Bank, which he directed for 15 years, and in 2014 he received the American Academy of Neurology  Movement Disorders Research Award.

Prof. Tolosa is the past Chairman of the Department of Neurology at the University of Barcelona Hospital and is currently Emeritus Professor at the University of Barcelona and Neurology Consultant at the Hospital Clinic University.

Professor Tolosa’s research interests include experimental therapeutics, etiology and pathophysiology of various Parkinson syndromes. He was involved in pioneering studies defining the mechanisms underlying levodopa-related motor fluctuations and  the role of DAT SPECT in the diagnosis of Parkinson disease  and his team was among the first in Europe to evaluate the efficacy of novel therapeutic strategies for movement disorders, such as botulinum toxin, subthalamic nucleus stimulation, subcutaneous dopamine agonist infusions and intraduodenal infusions of levodopa for Parkinson disease.

His research is currently focused on the prodromal phase of Parkinson disease in both idiopathic and  genetic forms   and the study of tissue biomarkers in these preclinical stages.

He is involved in the Parkinson Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI)-a study on biomarkers and  on the  preclinical phase of Parkinson disease – supported by the Michael Fox Foundation and the Healthy Brain Aging project, a multicenter European on-line project designed to study risk factors for Parkinson disease in the general population .