Professor Anita Harding (1952 – 1995)

The Anita Harding lecture was established in 2020 in honour of an outstanding clinician/scientist who was arguably one of the founders of neurogenetics. The lecture is awarded annually to a female pioneer in peripheral neuropathy research.

Anita was born in Birmingham in the UK in 1952 and attended the Royal Free Hospital Medical School in London. She trained in neurology in the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square and trained in genetics in Cedric Carter’s unit at the Institute of Child Health and subsequently was appointed to the National Hospital as a consultant neurologist and reader in 1987 and Professor of Clinical Neurology and head of neurogenetics in 1990. She had been appointed to become the Head of the University Department of Clinical Neurology in October 1995 but unfortunately died from cancer two months earlier at the age of 43.

Anita’s contribution to neurogenetics was recognised as being groundbreaking and she was often described as the Queen of neurogenetics. Her doctoral thesis on the inherited ataxias has been the basis of the classification of the ataxias for over 40 years. She was also the first to describe neurological diseases due to mitochondrial disorders and published extensively in the field of the dystonias and familial amyloid polyneuropathy. Together with her husband, Professor P K Thomas they were key people involved in defining the phenotype and the early genetics of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease. A seminal Brain paper in 1980 on the clinical features of Hereditary motor and sensory neuropathy (HMSN) types 1 and 2 is recognised as being one of the most important papers in the field and is still widely cited. Anita set up the first clinical and research neurogenetics group in the UK in the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery and the Queens Square Institute of Neurology in 1985. In the decade of her leadership of this new unit, the unit published over 200 papers. She was an exemplary writer.

Anita was also an outstanding lecturer and was in great demand internationally as a speaker. Together with her husband P K Thomas, a distinguished authority on peripheral neuropathy, they were founders of the European Neurological Society with others. Anita was a huge supporter of the Peripheral Nerve Society and regularly attended its meetings.

Anita’s death in 1995 at the height of her career left her fellows, her colleagues and British neurology bereft. There are very few people who left such a legacy in such a short lifetime.

Richard A.C. Hughes, MD, FRCP

Richard Hughes trained as a neurologist at Guy’s, University College and the National Hospitals, becoming a consultant at Guy’s in 1975 and remaining there until his retirement in 2007. In 1987, soon after the Guy’s and St Thomas’s medical schools joined to become the United Medical and Dental Schools, he became Professor of Neurology. In 1998, the Medical Schools united with King’s College London and Hughes became Head of the Division of Clinical Neurosciences of Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’s School of Medicine. In 1999 he founded the Cochrane Neuromuscular Review Group http://neuromuscular.cochrane.org/. He remained its Chief Editor until 2008.  From 2002 until 2007 he and Professor Nigel Leigh alternated as Head of the Department of Clinical Neuroscience of King’s College London. Following retirement in 2007 Hughes became Emeritus Professor of Neurology at King’s College London and moved his office to the Institute of Neurology as Honorary Professor University College London.

Hughes served as Co-Chief Editor of the Journal of Neurology from 1981 to 1989 and as Editor of the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry from 1989 to 1996.

Hughes was Chairman of the Royal College of Physicians Neurology Committee from 1993 to 1997. He was a Member of the Medical Research Council Neuroscience and Mental Health Board from 1996 to 2000. He was Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the World Congress of Neurology in London in 2001. From 2003 to 2006 he supervised the Clinical Trial Network of the European Neuromuscular Centre in Naarden, The Netherlands.  He was Chairman of the Scientific Committee European Federation of Neurological Societies www.efns.org from 1998 to 2006, vice-president from 2001 to 2005 and president from 2009 to 2014. He organised the production of consensus guidelines for the management of neurological conditions which have been regularly updated and are available on line https://www.ean.org/research/ean-guidelines/guideline-reference-center. He oversaw the amalgamation of the European Federation of Neurological Societies and the European Neurological Society in 2014 to become the European Academy of Neurology. From 2005 to 2007 he was the President of the international Peripheral Nerve Society and the founding chair of its special interest group, the Inflammatory Neuropathy Consortium:https://pnsociety.com/special-interest-groups/inflammatory

His research has focussed on the cause and treatment of inflammatory neurological diseases, especially Guillain-Barré syndrome and chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy. He has led several international randomised controlled trials investigating the value of immunotherapy for both these diseases. These established the value of intravenous immunoglobulin in both Guillain-Barré syndrome and chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy but, against expectations, showed that steroids were not effective in Guillain-Barré syndrome. With Norman Gregson, he developed an animal model for Guillain-Barré syndrome and identified three causative antigens. Against expectations, none have turned out to be important in human disease so far. He served on the steering committee of the International GBS Guillain-Barré Syndrome Outcome Study and contributed to Cochrane systematic reviews. He has published 12 books, 51 book chapters, over 150 editorials, reviews and other journal articles, and over 250 original journal articles. In 2000 he became a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, in 2006 he received the Medal of the Association of British Neurologists,  in 2009 he gave the Hughlings Jackson Lecture of the Royal Society of Medicine, in 2015 he became a Fellow of the European Academy of Neurology, in 2018 he received the Alan J Gebhart Prize for excellence in Peripheral Nerve Research from the international Peripheral Nerve Society, and in 2019 he gave the keynote lecture at the international Muscle Study Group meeting.

Arthur K. Asbury, MD (1928 – 2022)

The Arthur K. Asbury lecture was established in 2017, to honor one of the founders of the PNS, and is awarded annually for excellence in GBS/CIDP/inflammatory neuropathy. In an academic career that spanned more than six decades and three institutions (Massachusetts General Hospital, The University of San Francisco, and the University of Pennsylvania), Dr. Asbury was renowned for his clinical and experimental studies of peripheral neuropathies. His most noteworthy contributions on the topic of GBS/CIDP/inflammatory neuropathy include “The inflammatory lesion in idiopathic polyneuritis: its role in pathogenesis” (1969), “Diagnostic consideration in Guillain-Barré syndrome” (1981), and a series of articles in the 1990s stemming from a long collaboration between Penn, Johns Hopkins, and Hebei Medical College that established the relationship between Guillain-Barré syndrome, Campylobacter jejuni infections, and anti-ganglioside antibodies. Dr. Asbury published over 230 books, articles, chapters and reviews.

Dr. Asbury also was an able administrator who served numerous roles at his home institutions and in professional societies, an inspirational teacher, an astute clinician, and a valued mentor, including many members of the PNS. In addition to his numerous honors and awards, he was a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, London, and was elected to the National Academy of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 1993. Dr. Asbury and his wife Dr. Carolyn H. Asbury creating the Arthur K. Asbury, MD Endowed Chair of Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania, which will be held by the sitting chair of the department. His passing in 2022 has left an empty space in the hearts of many that we try to fill with our fond memories of him and an appreciation for all that he accomplished.

Jonathan Pembroke

The Jonathan Pembroke Speaker and Abstract Prize Award was established in his honor in 1997 by his mother, Professor Patricia Armati and her husband Professor John Pollard after his untimely passing after a long illness. The award highlights exceptional work in peripheral nerve research with emphasis on work from investigators from Australia and Eastern Asia.

Patsy and John have been long-standing members of the PNS and the Peripheral Nerve Study Group and have made major contributions to our field particularly related to Schwann cell and neuroglial biology, Professor Armati is the author of 3 books including the Biology of the Schwann Cell in 2007 and Pain: The Person, The Science, The Clinical Interface in 2015. She was a PNS board member from 2005-2009 and was the Jack Griffin speaker at the PNS meeting in 2013.

Professor Pollard’s research has focused on, but not confined to, the pathogenesis of acute and chronic inflammatory neuropathies. He described the immunopathology of idiopathic demyelinating neuropathy showing T cell subsets, mononuclear cells and Human Leukocyte Antigen class I and II expression within nerve, demonstrating the possibility of an immunological role for Schwann cells,  He was a key figure in the use of plasma exchange in GBS and CIDP.  He received the award of Officer of the Order of Australia, General Division (AO) for service to medicine in 2005.

Peter James Dyck, MD (1927 – 2025)

Peter James Dyck, M.D., Professor of Neurology, the Roy E. and Merle Meyer Professor of Neuroscience, and a true icon in the field of peripheral nerve disorders received his BA from the University of Saskatchewan in 1950 and the M.D. degree from University of Toronto in 1955. After Internal Medicine training at the University of Toronto, Neurology and Neuropathology training at University Hospital, Saskatoon, he completed a Fellowship in Neurology at the Mayo Clinic starting in 1959. On July 1, 1961, he was appointed to the Staff of the Mayo Clinic and became Full Professor in Neurology in 1973. Dr. Dyck retired on December 31, 2024 after 63 years, becoming both the oldest and the longest serving member of the Mayo Clinic staff ever.  Peter was born in a Mennonite community in the USSR and immigrated to Saskatchewan as a boy.

Dr. Dyck’s long and distinguished career led to his international recognition as a preeminent clinician, investigator and educator in the field of peripheral nerve disease. Peter is considered by many to be one of the three fathers of the modern study of peripheral nerve, the other two being P.K. Thomas from London and Arthur Asbury from University of Pennsylvania.  Through his seven-decade career he has made many noteworthy accomplishments. A theme of his career was finding ways to quantify features of peripheral neuropathies.  In pursuit of quantification, he developed quantitative sensory testing, morphometric techniques for identifying nerve fiber sizes and the neuropathy impairment score to measure the severity of a neuropathy based on the examination.  At the beginning of his career, he established the Peripheral Nerve Pathology Laboratory now recognized internationally as a premier pathology laboratory in the evaluation of disorders of peripheral nerve. Throughout his career he has described the clinical, electrophysiological, and pathological features of many peripheral nerve disorders. Early in his career he categorized Charcot-Marie-Tooth neuropathy into two forms, demyelinating (Type 1) and axonal (neuronal) (Type 2). He provided insight into the mechanism of vasculitic peripheral neuropathies and coined the term “non-systemic vasculitic peripheral neuropathy.” Dr. Dyck did extensive studies on demyelinating neuropathy, providing the initial description of patients with chronic inflammatory neuropathy, later naming this chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (CIDP). Subsequently he did clinical trials with prednisone, plasma exchange and intravenous immunoglobulin for the treatment of CIDP which contemporary colleagues said were the first controlled treatment trials for a peripheral nerve disorder. He led a 20-year long epidemiological study on diabetic neuropathy in Olmstead County, describing the incidence, spectrum, and  progression of this disorder over time. The findings from these studies remain some of the most important insights into diabetic peripheral neuropathy. Through his career he developed tools and methodologies for the identification and assessment of the change of the peripheral nerve disease used in clinical trials for treatment of diabetic peripheral neuropathy and most recently for ATTRv-PN amyloid peripheral neuropathy. For the study of ATTRv-PN neuropathies they are recognized as the standard method for assessment of treatment.

Dr. Dyck has written over 460 peer-reviewed articles, 129 book chapters, 27 reviews and edited 9 books, including four editions of Peripheral Neuropathy, the iconic and most authoritative book on disorders of the peripheral nervous system. He has served on the editorial Boards of 17 journals throughout his career. He has trained over 150 Research and Clinical Fellows, several who are presently members of the peripheral nerve groups in Rochester, Jacksonville, and Arizona.

Dr. Dyck is the founding member of the Peripheral Nerve Study Group, Peripheral Nerve Association, Peripheral Nerve Society, and the Quantitative Sensation Testing Society. He served as President of the American Neurological Association and the Peripheral Nerve Society.

Dr. Dyck’s remarkable accomplishments in the field of peripheral neuropathy have been recognized with numerous awards and Honors including Mayo Clinic Distinguished Investigator Award (2004), Mayo Clinic Distinguished Alumnus Award (2007), and Teacher of the Year Award in the Department of Neurology (1996). He was honored to be the Wartenberg Lecturer at American Academy of Neurology and received the NeuroDiab Lifetime Achievement Award and the Albert Nelson Marquis Achievement Award. He is an Honorary Member in several organizations including the  American Academy of Neurology, American Neurological Association, American Association of Electrodiagnostic Medicine, Canadian Society of Clinical Neurophysiologists, European Neurological Society, and the Mexican Neurological Association.

John W. Griffin, MD (1942 – 2011)

The John W. Griffin lecture was established in 2011 in honor of an outstanding clinician/scientist who was a pioneer in peripheral nerve research. The lecture is awarded annually to a researcher focusing on nerve regeneration.

Known to his friends simply as Jack, he epitomized the definition of clinician-scientist and combined the virtues of an expert and compassionate clinician with a visionary researcher and teacher. Jack graduated from Grinnell College in Iowa in 1963 and attended medical school at Stanford, where he met his future wife, Diane Edmund. Together they embarked on a career that culminated in both being inducted to Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science together in 2004. After internship and a year of internal medicine residency at Stanford, Jack moved to Baltimore in 1970 to complete his neurology residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Apart from a 2-year fellowship at National Institutes of Health (1973-5), Jack spent his whole academic career at Hopkins, training many future academicians.

Early in his career, Jack’s research focused on mechanisms of axonal degeneration. There were few researchers studying Wallerian degeneration and it was not easy to get funding early on. He later bemused to one of his trainees that his first R01 grant on axonal degeneration was turned down because of lack of interest from the reviewers but when he changed a single letter from “degeneration” to “regeneration”, his resubmission was awarded with enthusiasm.

In the second stage of his research career, Jack and his colleagues, both at Hopkins and outside, redefined the Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS). Together with their Chinese collaborator, Dr. Li of the Hebei Medical College, they described unusual seasonal epidemic cases of GBS in China. These cases are now known as acute motor axonal neuropathy (AMAN). Mechanistic studies on AMAN, and later with more traditional GBS patients, provided support to the “molecular mimicry” hypothesis explaining the autoimmune nature of GBS.

In addition to his research, Jack is well known for his visionary leadership in academic medicine.  As chair of the Department of Neurology at Johns Hopkins from 1998 to 2006, he oversaw a tripling of the research portfolio of the faculty and laid the groundwork for the department’s continued success as an academic powerhouse in neurology. He was always an advocate for junior faculty and young researchers. He believed in the success of academic clinician-scientist model and while he was the Chair of Department of Neurology, he co-chaired a school-wide committee on faculty development and gender issues and advocated for gender equality and academic diversity.

His devotion to young members of the academic community extended beyond the walls of Johns Hopkins. As the President of the American Neurological Association in 2003-2005, he advocated for election of younger members of the academic community to American Neurological Association and started a career development course as part of the annual meeting. Initially as President-Elect and then as President of the Peripheral Nerve Society (1995-1999), he promoted funding for young investigators to attend the bi-annual meeting.

It is unfortunate that such a visionary life was cut short due to cancer. Jack died in 2011. To his patients he will be remembered for his compassionate care, to his academic colleagues, he’ll be remembered for his “big picture” vision and devotion to younger members of the community, and to his mentees, he’ll be remembered as their biggest “tattoos” as said by P. A. Vesilind “A mentor is like a tattoo, it stays with you forever”.

Professor PK (Peter Kynaston) Thomas (1926 – 2008)

The P K Thomas lecture was established in 2011 to honour one of the great peripheral nerve neurologists of the 20th century. The lecture is awarded annually for excellence in inherited neuropathies.

P K attended Medical School at University College London and after training in neurology in the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery he spent a short period as an Assistant Professor of Neurology at McGill University in Montreal, before taking up a joint appointment as a Neurologist between the Royal Free Hospital, the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and the National Hospital for Neuropathy and Neurosurgery in London, UK. He was appointed as a Professor in University College London in 1974 and head of neurology in the Royal Free hospital. P K was an extraordinary experimental neurologist who developed expertise not only in clinical peripheral nerve disease but also in neurophysiology, neuropathology, and neurogenetics. He had a lifelong interest in the structure and function of the peripheral nervous system, and he was the first to show that in health nerve fibre diameter and internodal length determine the speed of electrical conduction. Together with his wife Professor Anita Harding, he used this knowledge to define hereditary neuropathies into the demyelinating and the axonal types. He also contributed multiple papers on experimental allergic neuritis, the inflammatory neuropathies and diabetic neuropathies. In the early 1980s he embraced this new science of genetics and over the next 20 years he was at the forefront of publishing in inherited neuropathies including papers on the chromosome 17 duplication and deletion and the hereditary neuropathies of childhood. He was an early and huge supporter of the PNS.

P K Thomas was also a renowned editor of neurological journals. He was co-chief editor of the journal Neurology from 1979 to 1981 and subsequently served as the editor of Brain (1982 – 1991) and the Journal of Anatomy (1990 – 2001).  P K Thomas published extensively and was an exceptional writer. The four editions of the two volume Dyck and Thomas “Peripheral Neuropathy” remains the best reference textbook on peripheral neuropathy available.

Richard Bunge, MD (1932 – 1996) & Mary Bartlett Bunge, PhD (1932 – 2024)

The Richard and Mary Bunge Lecture pays tribute to the outstanding contributions that they made to myelin and peripheral nerve biology. Richard Bunge and Mary Bartlett started their scientific careers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where Richard was a medical student, and Mary was a Ph.D. student. During this time, they worked together on the oligodendrocyte responses to demyelinating injury, and co-published papers using their burgeoning electron microscope skills that served them in good stead throughout their careers. They then moved to Columbia University for further postdoctoral study before accepting faculty positions at Washington University in Saint Louis in 1970. They established a highly productive lab that attracted some highly talented trainees who in turn made significant impacts in their own careers in myelin and peripheral nerve research.

Based on their many contributions to basic and translational research, they established the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis in 1989, with accompanying academic appointments in the University of Miami School of Medicine. Richard died in 1996, but Mary continued to spearhead diverse research initiatives at the Miami Project, and remained an inspirational mentor to many before her passing in 2024. While their manifold contributions are not easily enumerated, their early studies provided some of the first evidence of remyelination of the CNS after injury. Their fundamental observations regarding spinal cord injury later led to their explorations of cellular therapy in which Schwann cells could be used to promote recovery. Other highlights in peripheral nerve biology include the pioneering development of innovative techniques and conceptual insights, including the development of methods for in vitro myelination by Schwann cells. This provided a vehicle for many key discoveries including the key role of axoglial signaling in driving Schwann cell differentiation.  They also initiated studies to characterize the key role of extracellular matrix components in the basal lamina, and elegantly demonstrated that myelination proceeds by circumnavigation of the inner membrane. Their dedicated work provided inspiration to trainees within their lab but also to a whole host of colleagues and inheritors of their experimental tools and fundamental insights within the PNS community.