Parkinson’s Disease

Jason Chua, MD, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Neurology and Division of Movement Disorders at Johns Hopkins?School of Medicine. He received his training at the University of Michigan, where he obtained medical and graduate degrees, then completed a residency in neurology and a combined clinical/research fellowship in movement disorders and neurodegeneration.

Dr. Chua’s primary research interests are in neurodegenerative disease, with a special focus on the cellular housekeeping pathway of autophagy and its impact on disease development in diseases such as Parkinson disease. His work has been supported by multiple research training and career development grants from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the American Academy of Neurology. He is the primary or coauthor of 14 peer-reviewed scientific publications and two peer-reviewed online learning modules from the American Academy of Neurology. He is also a contributing author to The Little Black Book of Neurology by Osama Zaldat, MD and Alan Lerner, MD, and has peer reviewed for the scientific journals Autophagy, eLife, and Neurobiology of Disease.

Ira Daniel Breite, MD, is a board-certified internist and gastroenterologist. He is an associate professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where he?also sees patients and helps run an ambulatory surgery center.

Dr. Breite divides his time between technical procedures, reading about new topics, and helping patients with some of their most intimate problems. He finds the deepest fulfillment in the long-term relationships he develops and is thrilled when a patient with irritable bowel syndrome or inflammatory bowel disease improves on the regimen he worked with them to create.

Breite went to Albert Einstein College of Medicine for medical school, followed by a residency at NYU and Bellevue Hospital and a gastroenterology fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Working in city hospitals helped him become resourceful and taught him how to interact with people from different backgrounds.

Jason Chua, MD, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Neurology and Division of Movement Disorders at Johns Hopkins?School of Medicine. He received his training at the University of Michigan, where he obtained medical and graduate degrees, then completed a residency in neurology and a combined clinical/research fellowship in movement disorders and neurodegeneration.

Dr. Chua’s primary research interests are in neurodegenerative disease, with a special focus on the cellular housekeeping pathway of autophagy and its impact on disease development in diseases such as Parkinson disease. His work has been supported by multiple research training and career development grants from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the American Academy of Neurology. He is the primary or coauthor of 14 peer-reviewed scientific publications and two peer-reviewed online learning modules from the American Academy of Neurology. He is also a contributing author to The Little Black Book of Neurology by Osama Zaldat, MD and Alan Lerner, MD, and has peer reviewed for the scientific journals Autophagy, eLife, and Neurobiology of Disease.

Samuel Mackenzie, MD, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Child Neurology, Neuromuscular Disease, and Neuroscience at University of Rochester Medical Center. He completed his undergraduate studies at Cornell University before earning a master's degree in exercise science at the University of Delaware and his MD and PhD degrees at SUNY Upstate Medical University. He completed residency in child neurology at the University of Michigan and fellowship in neuromuscular medicine at The Ohio State University and Nationwide Children's Hospital.

Dr. Mackenzie's research interests broadly involve developing new ways to restore motor function in patients with neurological disease and developing gene-based treatments for patients with neuromuscular conditions. He also has an interest in health policy and advocacy, specifically as these relate to how scientific discoveries can best be leveraged for societal good in an equitable and cost-effective manner.

Michael R. Yochelson, MD, MBA, is the chief medical officer at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, where he was instrumental in starting its first fellowship in brain injury medicine. He is also an adjunct professor of clinical rehabilitation medicine at Emory University in Atlanta. He continues to work in the field of brain injury medicine, and he is board-certified in physical medicine and rehabilitation, neurology, and brain injury medicine.

He co-wrote and co-edited a book for patients and caregivers, Managing Brain Injury: A Guide to Living Well With Brain Injury. He has been an invited reviewer for peer-reviewed articles in Clinical Neurology & Neurosurgery, the?Journal of Rehabilitation Research & Development, and Neurosurgery.

Dr. Yochelson was previously the vice president of medical affairs and chief medical officer at MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital and the vice chair of clinical affairs for the department of rehabilitation medicine at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, both in Washington, DC. He served as a physician in the U.S. Navy for over 11 years. From 2004 to 2006, he co-directed the mild traumatic brain injury clinical team at the National Naval Medical Center. In 2006, he took a position at MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital as the medical director for the brain injury programs. During his tenure, he started a fellowship program in brain injury medicine, subsequently training seven physicians in the field.

He has served in several roles for the American Academy of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation and currently sits on the Inclusion and Engagement Committee. He was appointed by Congress to serve from 2014 to 2020 on the federal Advisory Committee on Prosthetics and Special Disability Programs, chairing the committee for five years. He coauthored the chapter on stroke rehabilitation in?Braddom’s Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Sixth Edition.