Scientific Key Opinion Leaders

A recognized global leader in stroke therapy, Dr. Lyden led a landmark 1995 clinical study that resulted in approval of the first treatment for stroke, which involves the intravenous delivery of an engineered protein that breaks down blood clots. His research bridges the lab and the clinic, with a focus on translating discoveries into new therapies that can eventually be tested in the type of large, multi-institutional clinical trials that he helms.

Dr. Lyden also played an important role in refining the National Institute of Health Stroke Scale, a widely used tool for evaluating the severity of a stroke. He produced and directed training and certification videos about the scale that have been viewed almost 2 million times by health care providers around the world.

The co-author of over 350 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters, Dr. Lyden has received research funding from federal agencies continuously for more than 30 years. He is advancing a new approach to stroke treatment using agents that target multiple biochemical pathways at the same time. His studies delve into the toxic effect on brain cells of thrombin, an enzyme that helps blood clot, as well as the therapeutic possibilities of blocking that enzyme. Another research interest centers on lowering the body temperature as a potential stroke treatment.

Dr. Lyden is no stranger to USC. He pursues active collaborations with faculty in the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute and in the Laboratory of NeuroImaging (LONI) to develop therapies for stroke. Even closer connections are likely to speed the progress of complicated trials, such as an ongoing three-year, multicenter preclinical study.

In addition to the allure of facilitating his research partnerships, Dr. Lyden is excited by the academic atmosphere at the Keck School of Medicine.

“I’m very grateful for my 10 years at Cedars-Sinai. It’s been great,” he said. “Here at the final chapter of my long career, I’m very much looking forward to returning to an academic milieu full of challenging graduate students, postdoctoral scholars and research faculty who are fully invested in basic science.”

Dr. Lyden is board-certified in vascular neurology and has been ranked as one of the “Best Doctors in America” continuously since 2009. He will see patients at the LAC+USC Medical Center and the Keck Medicine of USC clinic in Beverly Hills.

At Cedars-Sinai, Dr. Lyden founded the Department of Neurology, the Comprehensive Stroke Center, the Neurology Residency Program and the Vascular Neurology Fellowship. Before that, he was professor and vice chair of clinical neurology at the University of California, San Diego, and clinical chief of neurology and director of the Comprehensive Stroke Center at UCSD Medical Center. He also served as staff physician at the Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center.

Dr. Lyden completed his medical training at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, followed by an internship at Mercy Hospital and Medical Center in San Diego and a neurology residency and stroke fellowship at UCSD Medical Center.

He has earned such honors as the American Stroke Association’s William M. Feinberg Award for Excellence in Clinical Stroke, as well as election to the American Academy of Neurology, the American Neurological Association, the American Heart Association, and the European Stroke Organization.

He is a member of the editorial board of the journals Stroke and Therapeutic Hypothermia and Temperature Management, an associate editor of The International Journal of Stroke and a peer reviewer for Lancet and Science Translational Medicine.

Jeffrey Saver, MD, works at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), where he is medical director of the Stroke Unit at the UCLA Medical Center, an associate professor of neurology at the School of Medicine, and codirector of the Stroke Center. He has published more than 80 original articles, more than 15 book chapters, and two edited volumes. His research focuses on stroke prevention, acute stroke treatment, stroke diagnosis, and cognitive and behavioral consequences of stroke.

Saver is a fellow of the Stroke Council of the American Heart Association and the American Academy of Neurology. He received both his undergraduate and medical degrees from Harvard University and trained in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and in neurology at the Harvard-Longwood Neurological Training Program. Saver performed additional subspecialty fellowship training in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Iowa and in cerebrovascular disease at Brown University.

Kennedy Lees is Professor of Cerebrovascular Medicine at the University of Glasgow, UK, and Director of the Acute Stroke Unit in the Western Infirmary in Glasgow 1990-2015. His research interests include acute neuroprotection and thrombolysis for stroke, stroke trial design and secondary prevention, including blood pressure manipulation and AF detection. He has extensive experience with translational medicine in relation to stroke treatment. Recent research has concerned choice of outcome measures for stroke trials, the training of investigators in their use (such as the Rankin training programme) and the optimal analysis approaches.

Professor Lees has helped coordinate multicentre stroke trials including PROGRESS, ASSIST, MAST-E and CARESS, and acted as chief investigator for the GAIN-International, IMAGES, SAINT I and MACSI trials. He leads the Virtual International Stroke Trial Archive (VISTA) group, chaired the SAINT and CHANT Trials’ Steering Committee, is a past chairman of the European Stroke Council and is President of the European Stroke Organisation. He has chaired data monitoring committees for acute stroke trials including ICTUS, DIAS, ASSIST, mRECT trials, ECASS 3 and NEST-3. He chairs the outcomes committees for trials including the NIH-funded CLEAR-3 and MISTIE-3 trials, EU FP7-funded EuroHyp-1 and PRECIOUS trials, SITS-OPEN and CREGS-S. He is European associate Editor for Stroke. He is a member of the Scientific Steering committee and UK Coordinator for the Safe Implementation of Thrombolysis in Stroke (SITS) collaboration, and helps lead pooled individual patient analysis of iv thrombolysis trials and thrombectomy trials in stroke.

As President of the European Stroke Organisation, Professor Lees was chairman of the first ESO Conference, held in Glasgow in April 2015 and will lead the second ESO Conference to be held in Barcelona in May 2016.

Dr. Steven C. Cramer is a Professor of Neurology at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is also the Director of Research at California Rehabilitation Institute, and co-PI of the NIH StrokeNet clinical trials network. Dr. Cramer graduated with Highest Honors from University of California, Berkeley; received his medical degree from University of Southern California; did a residency in internal medicine at UCLA; and did a residency in neurology plus and a fellowship in cerebrovascular disease at Massachusetts General Hospital. He also earned a Masters Degree in Clinical Investigation from Harvard Medical School.

His research focuses on neural repair after central nervous system injury in humans, with an emphasis on stroke and on recovery of movement. Treatments examined include robotic, stem cell, monoclonal antibody, brain stimulation, drug, and telehealth methods. A major emphasis is on translating new drugs and devices to reduce disability after stroke, and on individualizing therapy for each person’s needs. Dr. Cramer has been awarded the Stroke Rehabilitation Award from the American Heart Association and the Barbro B. Johansson Award in Stroke Recovery from the World Stroke Organization, co-edited the book “Brain Repair after Stroke”, and is the author of over 250 manuscripts.

A list of Dr. Cramer’s publications can be found at
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/1rSsCRxdbzpAQ/bibliography/public/

Dr. Posner is a Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University and her work is saving lives all over the globe across 6 continents. The President of the American Psychiatric Association noted her work with the Columbia Protocol could be “like the introduction of antibiotics.” The U.S. Department of Defense said that her work is “nothing short of a miracle” and stated “her effective model of improving the world will help propel us closer to a world without suicide.” The CDC noted that her work is “changing the paradigm in suicide risk assessment in the US and worldwide.”

Dr. Posner’s work has been noted in a keynote speech at the White House and in Congressional hearings, and she gave the lead presentation in a forum on school safety at the U.S. Senate in her partnership with the Parkland community. Through her advocacy she has changed local, national and international policy, which in turn has helped achieve reductions in suicide across all sectors of society. Israeli government officials said her work “is not only saving millions of lives but in Israel it is literally changing the way we live our lives.”

She gave the invited presentation on tackling depression and suicide at the first European Union high level conference on mental health, was recognized as the Most Distinguished Alumna of her graduate school at Yeshiva University in the past 50 years, and received the New York State Suicide Prevention Award. She was also named one of New York Magazine’s “Most Influential.”

The Columbia Protocol is policy across all 50 states, many national agencies, and most countries. Dr. Posner was commissioned by the FDA to develop a scientific approach that has become the gold standard for suicide monitoring and is ubiquitous across the U.S. and worldwide. The FDA has characterized her work as “setting a standard in the field” and a lead article in The New York Times called it “one of the most profound changes of the past sixteen years to regulations governing drug development.” Her scholarly work has been included in the compendium of the most important research in the history of the study of suicide.

In 2018, Dr. Posner was awarded The Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service.

Dr. Quinn holds the post of Senior Clinical Lecturer and Honorary Consultant Physician in Stroke. He has a broad research portfolio, his principal research interests are around trial methodology, functional assessment and neuropsychological consequences of cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Quinn has published extensively on topics relating to stroke, cognition and test accuracy and has authored original research, opinion pieces and editorials for journals such as British Medical Journal; Journal of the American Medical Association and New England Journal of Medicine.

He is Principal Investigator for a number of studies and holds the inaugural CSO/Stroke Association priority program grant for his research into cognitive outcomes following stroke. Recent notable outputs include co-authoring best practice guidance for test accuracy studies in dementia; creating online training for stroke trials and developing short form assessment scales that are being used in various research studies and clinical sites.

Dr. Quinn is passionate about evidence based practice and has worked to raise standards in clinical research involving older adults. He holds editorial board positions with various journals including Stroke (American Stroke Association); Frontiers in Neurology (Frontiers) and PLOS (Public Library of Science). He is coordinating editor for the Cochrane Dementia Group; member of the Dementia Platforms UK vascular theme and part of the NIHR Complex Reviews Support Unit. Previous roles include the guideline writing group for the European Stroke Organisation; Question Writing Group for the Royal College of Physicians and Scientific Committee of the British Association of Stroke Physicians.

Within the University, Terry has a number of supportive roles. He leads the Glasgow Academic Training Environment, mentoring the next generation of clinic al academics. He is also vice chair of the MVLS ethics committee, advisor of studies for undergraduate medical students and part of the Athena Swan Self-Assessment Team. Beyond the University his academic citizenship includes chairing Trial Steering Committees and Data Safety Monitoring Board; examining for higher degrees and sitting on grant and fellowship review boards for various research funders.

Communicating science is a particular strength and in his role working with patient, caregivers and lay public, as lead for the Scottish Stroke Research Network he has initiated a number of schemes around research dissemination and involvement. As clinical member of the Scottish Parliament Cross Party Group on Heart Disease and Stroke and advisor to Healthcare Improvement Scotland, Terry has ensured that research results inform policy. A recent example is his role as medical advisor to the National report on atrial fibrillation.