30 years of ALS Genetics: distinguishing Signal from Noise

Dr. Matthew Harms is an Associate Professor of Neurology. He received his medical doctorate from the University of California San Francisco. Dr. Harms completed neuromuscular medicine and clinical neurophysiology fellowships at Washington University in St. Louis. His clinical training in neuromuscular diseases led him into the laboratory of Dr. Robert Baloh, where his post-doctoral research identified the genes responsible for two orphan human diseases- dominant spinal muscular atrophy with lower extremity predominance and limb-girdle muscular dystrophy type 1D. Dr. Harms joined the neuromuscular medicine faculty at Washington University in 2009 with board certifications in neurology, clinical neurophysiology, and neuromuscular medicine. In 2011, Dr. Harms assumed leadership of the Washington University Neuromuscular Genetics Project and established his research laboratory to continue harnessing emerging genetic technologies to understand the causes of inherited neuromuscular diseases. The lab focuses on diseases of the motor neuron, including ALS, and where his efforts have helped identify more than 5 novel disease genes. At Columbia, Dr. Harms continues these efforts, directing an international multi-site effort using whole genome and transcriptome sequencing to bring precision medicine to ALS. His laboratory efforts will occur in both the Motor Neuron Center and the Institute for Genomic Medicine.