Scientific Advisory Board 

Professor Andrea Gropman

Children's National Medical Center, Washington DC

Andrea Gropman (M.D., FAAP, FACMG, FANA) specializes in neurogenetics, with a focus on urea cycle disorders, mitochondrial disorders, X and Y chromosome aneuploidies, and Smith Magenis syndrome.

Andrea is a paediatric neuro-geneticist looking after children with severe epileptic syndromes including patients diagnosed with neurometabolic disorders, Fragile-X and Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome.

Andrea has Board certifications from American Board of Med Genetics (Clin Biochemical Genetics, clinical Genetics), American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (Child Neurology, Neurodevelopmental. Disabilities). Andrea’ group has published close to 180 manuscripts indexed on PubMed.

In regard to going forward Andrea’s extensive expertise and research emphasis on metabolically driven epilepsy syndromes will be extremely useful for CuroNZ when considering our planned clinical programmes for NRP2945 in the future.

It already has been discussed with Andrea that her department will try to accommodate children diagnosed with Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome for the planned NRP2945 related phase II clinical study in 2022-2023.

Professor Alexis Arzimanoglou

University Hospitals of Lyon, France

Dr Alexis Arzimanoglou, is specialized in Child Neurology. He is the Coordinator of the European Reference Network on Rare and Complex Epilepsies (ERN EpiCARE).

Alexis is currently working as Director of the Pediatric Clinical Epileptology, Sleep Disorders and Functional Neurology department at the University Hospitals of Lyon, France and is the Research Coordinator of the Pediatric Epilepsy Unit, Hospital San Juan de Dios, Barcelona, Spain. He also serves as Editor-in-Chief of the ILAE official educational journal Epileptic Disorders and as Associate Editor of the European Journal of Paediatric Neurology.

His clinical and research activities mainly concern the pharmacological and surgical management and genetics of childhood epilepsies also focusing on issues related to cognitive function and dysfunction. He is involved in several European collaborative studies on rare neurological disorders and currently co-chairing, together with Pr Mikati (USA), the International Alternating Hemiplegia of Childhood Research Consortium.

He has published more than 160 articles in peer-reviewed journals. Co-authored the latest edition of "Aicardi's Epilepsy in children" and co-edited several books in the field, including the 4th edition of the “Aicardi’s Diseases of the Nervous System in Childhood”(McKeith Press) and the first book on Pediatric Epilepsy Surgery (John Libbey editions).

Alexis received the ILAE Ambassador Award for Epilepsy and the “Aicardi award for Excellence in Paediatric Neurology” from the European Paediatric Neurology Society (EPNS).

In the past he served as: President of the Council of the French Chapter of the ILAE; Chair of the Scientific Committee of the EPNS; Member of the European Commission of the ILAE; President of the Société Européenne de Neurologie Pédiatrique (French speaking).

He is an active member of the International Child Neurology Association (ICNA); Corresponding member of the American Epilepsy Society (AES); Member of the ILAE Education Council and the Pediatric Epilepsy Surgery Task Force.

Professor Jacqueline French

NYU Comprehensive Epilepsy Centre In New York

Dr. Jacqueline A. French, M.D., FAAN, PhD is a Founder and Director of the Epilepsy Study Consortium. Jackie serves as chief Medical and Innovation officer of the Epilepsy Foundation. Jackie is a professor in the Department of Neurology NYU, in the comprehensive Epilepsy Centre and Director of the Epilepsy Study Consortium. She serves as Co-Director of Epilepsy Research and Clinical Trials at NYU's Comprehensive Epilepsy Centre.

She worked with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) developing new trial designs for the approval of antiepileptic drugs. She is the co-director of a bi-annual symposium on trial design and its implications. She served as the secretary of the American Society of Experimental Therapeutics. She served as President of American Epilepsy Society.

She co-directs a bi-annual symposium on trial design and its implications and holds positions on committees of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN), where she has also co-authored several AAN clinical practice guidelines.

In addition, Jackie is broadly published, having published over 300 research articles, editorials and chapters. Her writing has been featured in respected publications including The New England Journal of Medicine, Neuron, Neuro Image, Epilepsy Currents and Lancet Neurology. Jackie is a recognized world expert in the treatment of epilepsy and managing epilepsy clinical trials.

She was the recipient of the Epilepsy Foundation's 2013 Hero of Epilepsy Award, honouring her long-time contributions to epilepsy research and clinical trials as well as her significant impact on the epilepsy community. She is the recipient of the American Epilepsy Society Service Award and Lennox Lifetime Achievement award and the International League Against Epilepsy Ambassador award.

Jackie trained in Neurology at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and did her fellowship training in EEG and epilepsy at Mount Sinai hospital and Yale University. Jackie received her medical degree from Brown University Medical School, completed her residency and an epilepsy fellowship at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York and an additional epilepsy fellowship at Yale University.

Professor Sven G. Meuth

University of Munster, Germany

Sven G. Meuth (Prof. Dr. med. Dr. rer. nat. Dr. h. c., MHBA) is the Director of the Institute of Translational Neurology, University Hospital Munster and Deputy Director of the Clinic of Neurology, University Hospital Munster.

He has been awarded a number of highly prestigious science awards in Germany, amongst other the Heinrich Pette award from the German Society for Neurology and the Oppenheim award. He is specialized in inflammatory cellular processes and blood brain barrier crossings of T-lymphocytes during the disease course as occurring during various forms of Multiple Sclerosis. Neuroinflammatory diseases are also a focus of his clinical work.

In addition, he has taken over the medical final responsibility for epileptology within the Clinic of Neurology to develop it into a pre-surgical epilepsy centre, especially in the field of complex treatments and non-invasive pre-surgical epilepsy diagnostics and therapy. He has been PI or Deputy PI of more than 40 clinical studies.

His work encompasses the interdisciplinary project “Cells in Motion” (CIM) and his research is financially promoted by public third party funding, foundations and industry grants from Almirall, Amicus Therapeutics Germany, Bayer Health Care, Biogen, Diamed, Genzyme, Merck Serono, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, ONO Pharma, Roche, Sanofi-Aventis and Teva.

Sven has over 300 PubMed indexed publications to his name. His electrophysiological expertise is internationally outstanding in the area of two pore-domain potassium channels (K2P) which are expressed in neurons, immune cells and oligodendrocytes.

Sven’s group was instrumental in proving NRP2945’s efficacy in providing seizure cessation after acute PTZ intoxication of rats. Because of his preclinical and clinical expertise, Sven’s group will be an outstanding choice to accelerate follow-up compounds of NRP2945 for indications of progressive MS in the future.

Professor Michele Simonato

University Of Ferrara, Italy

Michele Simonato is Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Medical Schools of the University of Ferrara, Italy and of the University Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan, Italy. He is the Director of the Unit of Clinical Pharmacology, Sant'Anna Hospital, Ferrara, Italy.

He has been Chair of the International League against Epilepsy (ILAE) - American Epilepsy Society (AES) translational task force and is currently chair of the working group “Biomarkers and translational science for accelerating therapies for antiepileptogenesis and disease modification” of the National Institute of Neurological Disease and Stroke (NINDS), USA.

Michele received his MD at the University of Ferrara, and carried out his training at the University of Florence, Italy, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, AL and the Duke University, Durham, NC, USA.

He is a member of the major scientific societies for neuroscience and epilepsy, editor of several scientific journals and reviewers for a large number of journals and funding agencies worldwide. Michele has over 140 publications and 10 book chapters to his name.

His research focuses on the development of new therapeutic approaches for epilepsy; in particular, gene therapy strategies to prevent epileptogenesis and treat drug-resistant epilepsy.

He is very experienced in cellular neuroscience with an emphasis on epileptiform discharges in cortical, hippocampal and subcortical areas. Michele has successfully tested NRP2945 in an animal model of status epilepticus associated with intractable recurrent seizures.