Our keynote speakers at the Stroke Society of Australasia annual scientific meeting in 2010 are Professor George Howard, Professor Marie-Germaine Bousser, and Associate Professor Nicol Korner-Bitensky.
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Professor George Howard | Professor Marie-Germaine Bousser | Associate Professor Nicol Korner-Bitensky |
Professor George Howard
George Howard is Chair of the Department of Biostatistics in the School of Public Health at University of Alabama at Birmingham, US. He has published extensively in the analysis of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular risk factors, and has an interest in the development and application of statistical techniques in large multicentre clinical trials and epidemiological studies. He is currently PI of statistical analysis centre for the Carotid Revascularization Endarterectomy Stenting Trial (CREST) and PI of the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study. The REGARDS study, which has enrolled more than 30,200 U.S. participants, investigates why there is a greater-than 40 percent higher stroke death rate in eight southeastern states known as the Stroke Belt – Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South Carolina and Tennessee. Increased rates account for approximately 9,000 more stroke events each year in this region, and the estimated economic impact of these ‘extra’ deaths is nearly $1 billion a year.
Professor Marie-Germaine Bousser
Marie-Germaine Bousser is Professor at the Department of Neurology, Hospital Lariboisière, Paris, France. Her main research interests are cerebrovascular diseases in the field of stroke, migraine and intracranial aneurysm. Her expertise is wide-ranging: acute ischaemic stroke and heparin treatments, thrombolysis in stroke, secondary stroke prevention with anticoagulants, reduction in the risk of recurrent stroke in patients with and without diabetes, diffusion-weighted imaging of intravascular clots in cerebral venous thrombosis, the genetics of migraine, migraine and the risk of cervical artery dissection, and vascular dementia. Professor Bousser is or has been a principle investigator in the Perindopril Protection Against Recurrent Stroke Study (PROGRESS), the International Study on Cerebral Vein and Dural Sinus Thrombosis (ISCVT), the DIAMIG study for efficacy and tolerability of acetazolamide in migraine prophylaxis, and the French Study of Aortic Plaques in Stroke (FAPS).
Associate Professor Nicol Korner-Bitensky
Nicol Korner-Bitensky is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, School of Physical and Occupational Therapy, McGill University and the leader of the Rehabilitation and Recovery Theme for the Canadian Stroke Network (CSN). She completed her doctoral studies in Rehabilitation Science at McGill University. Her post-doctoral studies - University of Montreal, Montreal, Canada - focused on health service delivery. Her research agenda is designed to impact on the public by enhancing health service delivery in stroke rehabilitation using innovative best practice websites that are funded by the CSN, FRSQ, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, including “StrokEngine” www.strokengine.ca and StrokEngine-Assess www.strokengine-assess.ca. These sites bring information on best practices to clinicians, policy makers, patients and families. One of her priority research agendas is identifying effective knowledge translation strategies to increase “best practices” in stroke rehabilitation and eliminate “ineffective practices”.
