Prof. Dr. Christine Klein, Director of the Institute of Neurogenetics at the University of Lübeck and the University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein (UKSH), has received three international awards for her research on movement disorders.
She was awarded the “C. David Marsden Lecture Award” of the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society, which is presented once a year. The prize, named after an important British neurologist, honors outstanding neuroscientists worldwide whose research contributes to a better understanding of the neurobiology of movement disorders and enables new therapeutic approaches. In connection with the award, Prof. Klein gave one of the keynote speeches at the annual meeting of the Society in September 2019 in Nice, France, in front of 6000 international congress participants.
At the annual meeting of the Austrian Parkinson Society in Vienna in November, Prof. Klein was appointed an honorary member of the Society. This honorary membership is awarded annually to an internationally outstanding scientist. Also in November, Prof. Klein was awarded the Cotzias Award of the Movement Disorders Group of the Spanish Neurological Society (Sociedad Espanola de Neurologia) in Seville, Spain. The prize, which is awarded once a year, is named after the physician George Cotzias, the founder of a standard therapy for Parkinson's disease.
Prof. Dr. Christine Klein and her group are investigating rare hereditary disorders such as familial Parkinson's syndromes or dystonia, a group of movement disorders that have their neurological origin in the motor centers of the brain. The Research Unit’s focus lies particularly on the question of why many people who carry a disease-causing genetic mutation do not develop the disease but remain healthy. Another goal is to find out to what extent the patients' genetic make-up leads to successful therapies for some of them, while others benefit more from alternative methods.