About the Panelists
Deborah Hall
Deborah Hall, MD, PhD, is an adult neurologist and movement disorder specialist at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. She has training in genetics, epidemiology, and human subjects research. She conducts research primarily in two areas. Her work in Parkinson’s disease focuses on early interventions, such as neurotrophic factors and exercise, genetics and genomic causes of disease, and treatment for complications including falls. She also researches ataxia, specifically Fragile X-associated disorders, by investigating epidemiology, clinical features of movement and balance, and interventions. She has been National Institutes of Health–funded for the last 10 years as a primary investigator. She has a busy clinical practice focused on movement disorders within the Department of Neurological Sciences at Rush. She is the director of the FXTAS Clinic at Rush and the Movement Disorder DNA Repository within the Section of Movement Disorders at Rush.
Dr. Hall received her doctorate from Indiana University and her master’s from the University of Colorado, where she completed her residency and fellowship.
Peter K. Todd
Peter K. Todd, MD, PhD, is the Bucky and Patti Harris Professor in the Department of Neurology at the University of Michigan Medical School. As a clinician, Dr. Todd co-directs Michigan University’s Multidisciplinary Ataxia Clinic, where he sees patients with FXTAS (Fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome), and the Fragile X Syndrome Clinic, where he sees adult patients with Fragile X syndrome. He also serves as director of the Clinical Neurogenetics Research Program, which aims to improve research and care for patients with inherited neurological disorders.
As a physician-scientist, the Peter Todd Lab studies the mechanisms by which nucleotide repeat expansions cause neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders with a long-term goal of developing novel therapeutics for currently untreatable conditions. His lab has published extensively on Fragile X-associated disorders, such as Fragile X syndrome and FXTAS, as well as C9orf72 repeat expansions that cause ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease) and frontotemporal dementia.
In the past decade, Dr. Todd has given over 80 invited presentations across the world and published over 50 papers on his research.
Maureen Leehey
Nancy Hertzig
Moderated By
Robby Miller
Robby has been affiliated with the NFXF since 1999 and has spent over 50 years helping children with special needs, their families and the professionals who work with them. He first became a part of the Fragile X community when close friends had two children with Fragile X syndrome. Robby is particularly interested in how families learn about, access, and receive meaningful care and services. This interest led to his co-founding the Fragile X Clinical & Research Consortium. In his spare time, you’ll find Robby singing and playing rhythm guitar in a band with his long-time musical partners.
