To encourage young scientists, the organizing committee of the 6th MS Summer College in Fukuoka chose to give awards to the best three presentations (ordinary submissions). Votes from all organizing committee members were tallied and this year’s award-winners are as follows: First prize: Takuya Matsushita, Department of Neurology, Neurological Institute, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University (Fukuoka, Japan), who presented “A novel risk molecule associated with neurological impairment identified by genome-wide association study for neuromyelitis optica”. Second prize: Yusei Miyazaki, Department of Neurology, Hokkaido Medical Center (Sapporo, Japan), who presented “Fingolimod can suppress multiple sclerosis relapses without decreasing serum chemokine levels: Implications for relapses after fingolimod discontinuation”. Third prize: Etsuji Saji, Department of Neurology, Brain Research Institute, Niigata University (Niigata, Japan), who presented “A 28-year observational study of disease activities of patients with neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders in a Japanese cohort”. Dr Takuya Matsushita has been a Clinical Associate Professor at the Department of Neurology at the Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, since 2016. He obtained his MD in 2001, and his PhD in 2009 from the same school. He carried out excellent postdoctoral studies on multiple sclerosis (MS) genetics from 2012 to 2014 under the direction of Professors Stephen Hauser and Jorge Oksenberg at the Department of Neurology, University of California (San Francisco, USA), as a Visiting Scholar. He is particularly interested in genetic bioinformatics, and neuroimmunology of MS and neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders. His current research focuses on risk genes influencing disability of MS and neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders. Dr Yusei Miyazaki obtained his MD in 1998 from the Hokkaido University School of Medicine, and later his PhD from the same university. He studied neuroimmunology at the National Institute of Neuroscience (Japan) under the supervision by Drs Takashi Yamamura and Sachiko Miyake. He spent 3 years at the laboratory of Professor Amit Bar-Or, Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University (Montreal, Canada), for neuroimmunological studies on MS. He has been actively involved in researching human demyelinating diseases, with particular focus on B-cell biology, and published excellent works on this topic. Dr Etsuji Saji obtained his MD in 2004 from the Niigata University School of Medicine, after which he spent 2 years of residency training at Takeda General Hospital (from 2004 to 2006). He received his PhD at Niigata University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences in 2013. He carried out his postdoctoral studies from 2014 to 2015 in the laboratory of Professor Hans Lassmann at Department of Neuroimmunology, Center for Brain Research, Medical University of Vienna (Vienna, Austria). He is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Neurology, Niigata University Medical and Dental Hospital (Niigata, Japan). He has carried out distinguished studies on the immunopathology of neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders. All three studies were carried out with an exceedingly high level of quality, and have had a significant impact on clinical and basic research in demyelinating disease. I would like to encourage the winners to further develop their research in the near future. In conclusion, I also wish to express my gratitude to the Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation, which generously funded this meeting, including the awards. Conflict of interest: The author declares no conflict of interest.
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Nov 11, 2020
Kenji Doya + 1
Open Access
