From Past to Future: Charting the Course of Treatments for Fragile X-Associated Conditions

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.