IAPRD 2024 Award Winners

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

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.

Melvin Yahr Award

Award Lecture: New steps towards preventing Parkinson disease
Sunday, 19 May 2024 during the opening ceremony

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.

• Daniela Pimenta Silva (Lisbon, Portugal) – O_06:
  Immersive virtual reality as a complement to physical therapy for Parkinson’s disease – A randomized controlled trial
• Sirui Zhang (Chengdu, China) – O_16:
  Novel insights into the sex-specific role of lipid and apolipoprotein traits associated with risk of Parkinson’s disease: A prospective study
• Joaquim Ferreira (Torres Vedras, Portugal) – O_21:
  Opicapone as Add-on to Levodopa in Parkinson’s Patients without Motor Complications: Preliminary Data from EPSILON
• Oscar Bernal-Pacheco (Bogotá, Colombia) – O_31:
  Deep Brain Stimulation of the Posterior Hypothalamus in Aggression Management – A Case Series Analysis
• Ibrahem Hanafi (Würzburg, Germany) – O_32:
  Brain metabolic correlates of STN-DBS on gait in Parkinson’s disease: FDG-PET study of gait with dynamic obstacle avoidance
• Zbigniew Wszolek (Jacksonville, United States) – O_33:
  Adult-Onset Leukoencephalopathy with Axonal Spheroids and Pigmented Glia (ALSP)
• Fabrizio Stocchi (Rome, Italy) – O_43:
  Continuous subcutaneous levodopa/carbidopa infusion (ND0612) for patients with Parkinson’s disease and motor fluctuations: A Phase 3, active-controlled study (BouNDless)
• João Moura (Porto, Portugal) – O_55:
  The phenotypic spectra of polyQ expansion versus non-expansion forms in spinocerebellar ataxias

• ​José-Francisco Rocha (Coronado, Portugal) – P_08 (GPT):
  Opicapone as First-Line Strategy for the Treatment of Wearing-off in Korean Patients with Parkinson’s Disease
• Marcelo Mendonça (Lisbon, Portugal) – P_38 (GPT):
  Integrity of Dopaminergic Terminals in the Caudate Nucleus Modulates Rest Tremor in Parkinson’s Disease
• Valtteri Syvänen (Kuopio, Finland) – P_66 (GPT):
  Gut changes as potential trigger for Parkinson’s disease
• Hanshu Liu (Wuhan, China) – P_87 (GPT):
  Two parallel nigrostriatal subcircuits mediate arousal effect of dopaminergic neurons in substantia nigra pars compacta
• Chad Heatwole (Rochester, United States) – P_104 (GPT):
  The PD-HI: Development and Validation of a Novel, Disease-Specific Patient-Reported Outcome Measure for Parkinson’s Disease Clinical Trials
• Divyani Garg (New Delhi, India) – P_189 (GPT):
  Phospholipase-associated neurodegeneration in India: Observations from a case series of 20 patients
• Pierfrancesco Mitrotti (Pavia, Italy) – P_214 (GPT):
  Intronic GAA-FGF14 Expansion in an italian patient presenting with early-onset cerebellar ataxia
• Vesna Marija Van Midden (Ljubljana, Slovenia) – P_235 (GPT):
  Craniocervical synkinesias in movement disorder patients
• Ana Jimena Hernández-Medrano (Mexico City, Mexico) – P_264 (GPT):
  Gender Disparities in Parkinson’s Disease: Exploring Quality of Life Among Mexican Men and Women (2011-2019)
• Grace Liang (San Diego, United States) – P_286 (GPT):
  Efficacy of Once-Daily Valbenazine in Adults with Chorea Associated with Huntington’s Disease: Effect Size Over Time