Dr. Fox is staff neurologist and medical director at the Mellen Center for Multiple Sclerosis, Cleveland Clinic Foundation. He received a medical degree from Johns Hopkins University and neurology residency training at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. His research training and experience includes a master's degree in clinical research from Case Western Reserve University, a Potiker Fellowship in Multiple Sclerosis at the Mellen Center, site principal investigator for many clinical trials and principal investigator and co-investigator on NIH and National MS Society-funded grants. Dr. Fox is also a member of the clinical advisory committee for the Ohio Buckeye Chapter of the National MS Society and the general advisory council for the Cleveland Clinic General Clinical Research Center. His current research interests focus on innovative MRI techniques to evaluate MS treatments and tissue recovery after injury.

Samia Khoury, MD
Associate Professor of Neurology
Brigham and Women's Hospital

Samia Khoury, MD, received her medical diploma from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon in 1984 having been elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society in 1983. She completed her neurology residency at the Case Western Reserve University Hospitals in Cleveland, Ohio in 1988. She then came to the Brigham and Women's Hospital as a research fellow at the Center for Neurologic Diseases. In 1991, after the completion of her fellowship, she was appointed instructor in medicine and then assistant professor of neurology in 1994. In 1998 she was promoted to associate professor of neurology, and was also appointed as the director of the Clinical Immunology Laboratory at the Center for Neurologic Diseases at Brigham and Women's Hospital. In 2001, she was additionally appointed as the co-director of the Partners Multiple Sclerosis Center, Boston.

Her accomplishments are summarized in three areas: 1) A well funded basic research program that addresses clinically relevant questions in MS; 2) Expertise in mechanistic studies complementing cutting edge clinical research; 3) Expertise in running a first rate clinical program for MS.

Dr. Khoury has been well funded since establishing her laboratory and has maintained continuous funding through the NIH and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Her stature in translational research is evident in her ability to secure NIH funding for basic research as well as receiving an Autoimmunity Centers of Excellence award (U19) for clinical trials/mechanistic studies.

Dr. Khoury's commitment to translational research is evident by her involvement in clinical trials at the MS center. Her major interest in this regard is the performance of Phase I and II trials with mechanistic studies. She is the principal investigator of three trials funded by the NIH heavily emphasizing mechanistic studies.

Paul O'Connor, MD
Director, MS Program
University of Toronto

Paul O'Connor, MD, is the director of the MS Clinic at St. Michael's Hospital and director of the MS program at the University of Toronto. He also serves as director of the division of neurology at St. Michael's Hospital, University of Toronto. Dr. O'Connor's research interest is in the development of new treatments for MS and in that capacity has served on the steering committee for numerous drug trials with various roles including chairman. He has numerous peer-reviewed publications on this subject and remains very active in the field.