Right Patient, Right Treatment, Right Time: Utilizing Early, High-Efficacy Therapies to Improve Outcomes in RRMS

Fred D. Lublin, MD is the Saunders Family Professor of Neurology at The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Director of the Corinne Goldsmith Dickinson Center for Multiple Sclerosis at that institution.

Dr. Lublin received his medical degree in 1972 from Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, PA. He completed his internship in Internal Medicine from the Bronx Municipal Hospital, Albert Einstein Medical Center, and his residency at the New York Hospital, Cornell Medical Center.

As a neuroimmunologist, Dr. Lublin has a special interest in immune functions and abnormalities affecting the nervous system. He has been involved in both basic science and clinical research. He and his colleagues were among the first in the country involved with studies of Interferon beta-1b, which was approved by the Food & Drug Administration in 1993 to treat the relapsing-remitting form of Multiple Sclerosis. He is currently involved with several new clinical research protocols on promising agents for treating various aspects of MS. He was chairman of the National MS Society (USA) advisory committee on clinical trials of new drugs in Multiple Sclerosis and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s Research Programs Advisory Committee. He was a member of the National MS Society National Board of Directors. He is past Chair of the New York City/Southern New York Chapter of NMSS Clinical Advisory Committee. He is a member of the International Medical & Scientific Board of the Multiple Sclerosis International Federation. Dr. Lublin and his colleagues at the National MS Society have re-defined the clinical course definitions of MS, updated in 2014. He has chaired a task force on the ethics of placebo-controlled trials in MS. Dr. Lublin is a member of the international panel that periodically redefines the diagnostic criteria for MS (McDonald Criteria). Dr. Lublin is co-chair of the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke MS Common Data Element committee and a member of their steering committee. He is a member of the WHO Advisory Group for the Revision of ICD-10 Diseases of the Nervous System working group on demyelinating diseases of the central nervous system. He was a Co-Chief and founding Editor of the journal Multiple Sclerosis and Related Disorders.

Dr. Lublin has published numerous scientific articles and is a member of many professional societies and advisory boards. Dr. Lublin has served as a consultant to the National Institutes of Health and to many pharmaceutical/biotech companies in all phases of new drug development and in preparation for presentation to the FDA and their advisory panels. He was the Principal Investigator of the NIH-sponsored multicenter Combination Therapy study in Multiple Sclerosis. In June of 2019, Dr. Lublin was awarded the June Halper Lifetime Achievement Award from the Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers.

Dr. Anne H. Cross is a professor of Neurology at Washington University in St. Louis, where she holds the Manny & Rosalyn Rosenthal and Dr. John L. Trotter MS Center Chair in Neuroimmunology and has served as Section Head of the Neuroimmunology/MS Section since 2001.

Raised in Mobile, Alabama, Dr. Cross graduated cum laude from the University of Alabama School of Medicine and was selected for the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honorary. After residency training in adult neurology at George Washington University, she spent several years as a post-doctoral fellow training in neuroimmunology and neuropathology at the National Institute of Health with Drs. Dale McFarlin and Henry McFarland and later at Albert Einstein College of Medicine with Drs. Cedric Raine and Celia Brosnan. Dr.Cross pursued further training in the clinical care of MS patients at Albert Einstein College of Medicine with Dr. Labe Scheinberg and received the Harry Weaver Neuroscience Scholar award of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society in 1990 and the John Jay Dystel Prize in 2019.

Dr. Cross joined the Washington University Department of Neurology in 1991. Her research has been continually funded by the National MS Society, the NIH and/or the U.S. Department of Defense since she opened her laboratory in 1991. Her laboratory currently focuses on advanced imaging studies of progressive MS and the role(s) of B cells and B cell products in MS and its animal models. During her nearly 30 years at Washington University, she has trained more than 30 students, residents, and fellows; she is very proud that they all continue to actively contribute to the research and care of MS and related diseases.

Joseph R. Berger, MD, FACP, FAAN, FANA, is Professor of Neurology and Associate Chief of the Multiple Sclerosis Division of the Department of Neurology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Dr. Berger is a summa cum laude graduate of the Pennsylvania State University – Jefferson Medical College 5 Year Accelerated Medical Program and a member of the national medical honor society, Alpha Omega Alpha. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Georgetown University Hospital and his neurology residency at the University of Miami School of Medicine and is board certified in both internal medicine and neurology. In 1981, he joined the faculty of the University of Miami School of Medicine serving in both the Departments of Neurology and Internal Medicine. At that institution, he held the Whigham-Berger Endowed Chair for the study of neurological complications of HIV/AIDS, the first endowed chair for the study of the neurological complications of HIV/AIDS. From 1995 through 2013, Dr. Berger was the Chairman of the Department of Neurology at the University of Kentucky where he was the Ruth L. Works Professor of Neurology and director of the UK Multiple Sclerosis Clinic.

He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, American Academy of Neurology, and the American Neurological Association (ANA). In 2014 he was the recipient of the Pioneer Award from the International Society of Neurovirology and gave the prestigious Raymond D. Adams Lecture at the annual meeting of the ANA. In 2015 he was awarded the Distinguished Teaching Award from the ANA. In 2018, he received the Annual Alumni Achievement Award from the Sidney Kimmel Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University. His research interests include progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, the neurological complications of HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and other inflammatory disorders of the brain. He has published more than 250 refereed papers, more than 100 chapters, and has co-edited three textbooks (Berger JR and Levy RM: AIDS and the Nervous System, 2nd edition, Raven Press, New York, 1996; Nath A, Berger JR: Clinical Neurovirology, Marcel Dekker, New York, 2003 (2nd edition forthcoming in 2019); Portegies P, Berger JR: HIV/AIDS and the Nervous System, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2007). Dr. Berger co- founded and chaired the first international conference on the neurological complications of HIV, the Neuroscience of HIV meeting. He also established the Commonwealth Neurological Society for neurologists in the state of Kentucky. Dr. Berger has a longstanding interest in international health and was one of the founding members of People-to-People, an organization for HIV/AIDS care and education in East Africa.