Aboutthe Institute

Staff

Prof Timothy Lynch, MB, BSc., DCH, FRCPI, FRCP, ABPN

Professor Tim Lynch is a Consultant Neurologist at the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital (MMUH) and Beaumont Hospital. He is also Director of the Dublin Neurological Institute at the MMUH and Professor of Neurology at University College Dublin (UCD) and Clinical Investigator at the Conway Institute, UCD.

Prof Lynch is a Royal College of Surgeons medical graduate from 1984 and a UCD BSc Pharmacology graduate from 1986. He trained in clinical medicine initially in the Richmond Hospital and subsequently Beaumont Hospital, the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital before doing one year of paediatric neurology in Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin.

In 1990 Prof Lynch moved to New York and spent eight years at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Centre/Columbia University initially doing a residency in neurology under the supervision of Prof Lewis P Rowland before spending a two-year Fellowship in Movement Disorders & Genetics of Neurodegeneration under the supervision of Prof Stanley Fahn. During his Fellowship Prof Lynch developed an interest in Genetics of Movement Disorders and Neurodegeneration doing early linkage analysis and gene cloning. Prof Lynch returned to take up the post as Consultant Neurologist at the MMUH in 1998. He studied an Irish-American family with frontotemporal dementia, Parkinsonism and Amyotrophy. Prof Lynch and Wilhelmsen published seminal papers on Frontotemporal Dementia Syndrome linked to chromosome 17. Prof Lynch then helped to form collaboration with the Mayo Clinic, Washington University, St Louis and Maastricht University resulting in cloning the tau gene for Frontotemporal Dementia linked to chromosome 17 in a number of pedigrees. This paper was published in Nature in 1998.

He has developed the Department of Neurology at the MMUH setting up a Movement Disorder Clinic, a Multiple Sclerosis Clinic, a Migraine and Headache Clinic, a Deep Brain Stimulation Clinic, a Stroke Unit culminating in the opening of the Dublin Neurological Institute at the MMUH in September 2008. He was appointed Professor of Neurology, University College Dublin in 2007 and Director of the Dublin Neurological Institute in 2008. Prof Lynch has published over eighty articles in peer-reviewed journals on the genetics of Parkinson’s disease, neurodegeneration and other movement disorders.

He collaborates with research groups at the Mayo Clinic, US, University College London, National Institute of Health, US and Conway Institute, University College Dublin. His main research interest includes Parkinson’s disease, movement disorders, genetics of Parkinson’s disease and Parkinsonism, genetics of atypical dementia and the genetics of multiple sclerosis.

Prof Peter Kelly

Professor Peter Kelly, MD, MS, FRCPI, is a Consultant Stroke Neurologist, Director of the Stroke Service at the Mater University Hospital, and Associate Professor of Neurology at University College Dublin.

A 1990 UCD graduate, he holds a Doctorate of Medicine and Masters in Physiology from UCD, and Masters degree in Clinical Investigation from Harvard Medical School.

He spent 7 years at Massachusetts General Hospital and worked at Harvard School of Public Health before returning to the Mater in 2003.

He has published widely on Stroke in international journals and is co-editor of a multi-author textbook on Stroke Prevention. Since returning to Ireland, he established the Neurovascular Clinical Science Unit at the Mater UCD campus, to further patient-oriented research on stroke.

His academic work is focused on stroke prevention and translational research aimed at developing new surrogate markers for early clinical trials of stroke treatments.

He is the Principal Investigator of several ongoing studies of stroke including:

• the North Dublin Stroke Study
• the North Dublin TIA Study
• the Dublin Carotid Artery AtherosclerosisStudy

He has received several Irish and US grants for his research, including a highly-competitive HRB Clinician Scientist Award in 2006.

He serves as an advisor on the Irish Stroke Council, Volunteer Stroke Scheme, Neurological Alliance of Ireland and National Stroke Audit Review Group.

Most recently he has served on the National Cardiovascular Strategy Review Group.

Dr. Killian O'Rourke MD MSc (Stroke Med.) MRCPI is a 1994 RCSI graduate.

He has a particular interest in the use of disease modifying therapy (DMT) as applied to Multiple Sclerosis and Stroke, which are the leading neurological causes of chronic disability affecting younger and older adults respectively.

He has published in international journals on the use of DMT in the form of beta-interferon for Multiple Sclerosis, and in the form of thrombolysis "clotbuster" treatment and dedicated stroke units for Stroke. In 2007 he was awarded an MD degree by UCD for his work on the development of treatment failure criteria for DMT in Multiple Sclerosis, and in 2009 he was awarded a Masters degree in Stroke Medicine by the University of Krems, Austria. He has a strong interest in evidence-based medicine and medical statistics, and has been at the forefront of the application of Bayesian statistical methodology to the fields of DMT for Multiple Sclerosis and Stroke. He is a member of the Cochrane Collaboration Stroke Group for whom he heads an ongoing evaluation of interventional radiological approaches to acute Stroke management. In 2007 he was appointed a Health Research Board of Ireland Cochrane Research Fellow.

Noddy Dempsey - Clinical Nurse Specialist in Neurology

Noddy has been part of the Neurological team at the Mater Hospital since 2001. She specialises in Stroke, Epilepsy and General Neurology. Noddy also runs the Nurse Led Clinics on Thursday afternoons in Stroke and Epilepsy.

Brian Magennis - Clinical Nurse Specialist in Neurology

Brian Magennis was the second Parkinson';s disease / Movement disorder Nurse Specialist appointed in the Republic of Ireland and since 2003 has been working at the Mater. Brian runs the Nurse Led Clinic for patients with Parkinson';s disease and Movement disorders.

Jacqueline Scott - Clinical Nurse Specialist in Neurology

Jacqueline has been part of the Mater Neurology team since 2002 and her speciliaities include Multiple Sclerosis, neuroimunology and general neurology to include Motor Neurone Disease. Jacquline';s Nurse Led Clinic take place on a Thursday afternoon in the Neurological Institute.

The field of neurology is rapidly changing all the time. Neurologists used to be just diagnostic clinicians but now it is a therapeutic specialisation. This is the era of neurology and the brain is the Holy Grail of medical research. - Professor Tim Lynch