Marinos C. Dalakas

[[author photo]]We are thrilled to have Marinos Dalakas, M.D., as the Guest Editor of this issue of Seminars in Neurology. Dr. Dalakas is Chief of the Neuromuscular Diseases Section at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Clinical Professor of Neurology at Georgetown University School of Medicine, and Clinical Professor of Neurology and Pediatrics at Children's National Medical Center, George Washington University School of Medicine. Dr. Dalakas was educated at the National University of Athens, Athens Medical School in Greece and did a Medical Internship at Ellis Hospital, Albany Medical School, New York; a Neurology Residency at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, New Jersey Medical School; and a Fellowship in Neuromuscular Diseases at the Medical Neurology Branch, National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda Maryland.

Dr. Dalakas has received a number of distinguished honors, beginning with scholarships throughout the time he was a medical student and throughout his career. He has been awarded a Doctor of Sciences from the University of Ioannina Medical School, Ioannina, Greece, an NIH Director's Award, and a U.S. Public Health Service Special Recognition Award. He was the recipient of the Achievement Award in the Field of Medicine from the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association, and given the Duchenne-Erb Prize by the Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Bekampfung der Muskelkrankheiten e. V (German Association for Neuromuscular Diseases). He has been awarded the Ramsay Lectureship and Ramsay Medal by the Ramsay Society of London. He received a Special Recognition Award by the New York Academy of Sciences and a Staff Recognition Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in "Recognition and Appreciation of Sustained High Quality Work Performance." He was elected "Membre d'honneur a titre etranger" of the French Neurological Society, and received the 1998 Annual Immunology Lectureship from the Department of Medicine at the University of Puerto Rico. He is an honorary member of "Gaetano Conte Academy" in Naples, Italy, and has received the A. Onassis Foundation Senior Visiting Scholarship award at Columbia University. He has been awarded the 2002 Gaetano Conte Prize for Clinical Research, and has two monetary awards from the Clinical Center at the NIH for Bench-to-Bedside work on the Immunotherapy and Molecular Immunology of Inclusion Body Myositis, and for a proposal on Therapeutic Trial and Biochemical Parameters in Hereditary Inclusion Body Myositis. He also shares a patent for the use of "Immunotoxin (mAB 35-ricin) for the Treatment of Focal Movement Disorders."

Dr. Dalakas is a member of a number of Editorial Boards including Muscle and Nerve, Advances in Neuroimmunology, and the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry. He has published 386 manuscripts in every prestigious journal, including Neurology, Annals of Neurology, Brain, Journal of Neurological Sciences, Ann NY Academy of Sciences, Journal of Neuroimmunology, and the New England Journal of Medicine. Amazingly, he is the senior author or the first author on the majority of these manuscripts. He has also edited and authored a number of textbooks and monographs, including Polymyositis and Dermatomyositis, The Post Polio Syndrome: Advances in the Pathogenesis and Treatment, Immune-Mediated Peripheral Neuropathies: Pathogenesis and Treatment, Autoimmune Peripheral Neuropathies: Pathogenesis and Treatment, Immune Regulatory Pathways in Autoimmune and Neuroimmunologic Diseases, Autoimmune Neuropathies, and Myopathies in Clinical Practice.

In 1994, Dr. Dalakas was the Guest Editor of an issue of Seminars in Neurology on Immunotherapy of Neurologic Diseases. We are honored to have him back, and are terribly grateful to all of the contributors who worked on this issue of Seminars in Neurology.