Inflammatory and Autoimmune Disorders of the Nervous System in Children

Russell C. Dale is a paediatric neurologist and researcher in inflammatory and autoimmune disorders of the central nervous system at Children’s Hospital at Westmead, University of Sydney, Australia. His main interests are inflammatory mechanisms, particularly novel auto-antibodies, in immune-mediated CNS disorders. He is part of the International Pediatric MS Study Group committee and has active research interests in paediatric CNS demyelination and autoimmune movement disorders. He has published in peer-reviewed journals including Nature Medicine, Lancet Neurology, Annals of Neurology, Brain, Neurology and Movement Disorders. Russell received the British Paediatric Neurology Association junior investigator award in 2003. He is an invited speaker at international conferences related to his interests in paediatric movement disorders and neuroinflammatory disorders. He appeared in the BBC documentary on ‘Encephalitis lethargica’ in 2004 and has been interviewed for a number of newspaper articles.

Angela Vincent is Emeritus Professor of Neuroimmunology in the University of Oxford and an Emeritus Fellow of Somerville College.  She was formerly head of the Department of Clinical Neurology and head of the Neurosciences Group at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine. She continues as an Honorary Consultant in Immunology and runs the clinical neuroimmunology service, an international referral centre for neurological antibodies. She collaborates with neurologists worldwide. She is best known for identifying new targets for autoantibodies in neuromuscular junction disorders and in non-paraneoplastic brain diseases, and for establishing diagnostic assays for these conditions. She has received several awards and honours (honorary PhD University of Bergen, honorary FRCP, FMedSci) and given many named lectures.  She is a past president of the International Society of Neuroimmunology and an Associate Editor of Brain.