The Parkinson Team
Casey Wigotow
Casey is never too far away from her cameras. In fact, this is one of the pictures I took of her while she was taking thousands of pictures in London while we were interviewing Parkinson patients and their family members. Casey is an award- winning photographer who travels all over the world taking pictures of events, weddings and people. I remember telling her when I first met her about the Parkinson's project and she told me about her personal connection to Parkinson's disease.
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Casey Wigotow was born and raised in Boulder, Colorado. She attended the University of Northern Colorado where she received a degree in Journalism as well as Communications. Casey is the President and founder of Two One Photography. She began photography in college sports and moved into cinematic photography and events. Casey’s photo-journalistic approach has made her even more passionate about telling people’s stories through photographs.
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You can see more of her pictures here
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Chris Harvey John
Chris is the Director of Harvey House Films. He originally trained as an actor specialising in improvisation and storytelling. After being diagnosed with early onset Parkinson’s at the age of 34, he made the decision to change his career and started his own post-production company, Harvey House Films. Chris’s expertise lies in visual effects, motion graphics, compositing and editing where he continues to fuel his passion for storytelling. Most recently he has supplied all the FX for various BBC4 documentaries such as ‘Shock and Awe; The Story of Electricity’, ‘Materials; How They Work’, ‘Cutty Sark; A National Treasure’, ‘Pain, Pus and Poison’ and many others.
Dr. Shadi Farhangrazi, Founder
Shadi is a biochemist, neuroscientist, infectious diseases expert, strategist, entrepreneur and an expert in the areas of innovation and entrepreneurship. She is the President and Managing Partner of management consulting firm Biotrends International, Niara Productions. Dr. Farhangrazi is also Adjunct Professor of Management at the University of Denver, Daniels College of Business, and University College, and visiting professor at Università Degli Studi Di Padova (Italy). Dr. Farhangrazi teaches and works globally and is an advisor to major multinational companies, governmental and non-governmental organizations and biotechnology companies, having worked across the world from Europe and Africa to the Middle East and Asia. She has written numerous scientific papers, articles, reviews, science and business commentaries, and contributed book chapters.
Internationally recognized Dr. Farhangrazi has given hundreds of invited talks and plenary speeches and teaches classes and workshops globally. She has been interviewed by many media outlets and frequently speaks on science and business topics.
Dr. Farhangrazi was formerly, the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the National Centre for the Study of Orphan Diseases (CSOD), Research Assistant Professor of Neurology and Neurological Surgery faculty in the Centre for the Study of Nervous System Injury and Science and Business Liaison for the Spinal Cord Injury Research and Rehabilitation Programme at Washington University School of Medicine and the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery in St. Louis, Missouri. Over the last decade, Dr. Farhangrazi’s work has taken her from remote back country trails in Rwanda, the slums of Kenya and Mumbai, Research Parks in India and Malaysia and high tech companies in Silicon Valley, US and Europe, to working with global companies and organizations and meeting with international leaders.
Joan Lane
Ms. Lane has worked in arts management and production for over 25 years. Originally trained as a Speech and Language Therapist, with a background as a music scholar, she has arranged choral tours and produced and directed concerts and operas in the UK and in Europe.
Most recently, Ms. Lane developed the film ‘The King’s Speech’, directed by Tom Hooper and starring Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter, adapted from the stage play by its author David Seidler. In 2013 she was co-producer of ‘Maurice’s Jubilee’ a new play which toured in the UK and was seen at the Art Theatre in Moscow in March 2015. Currently, her company, Wild Thyme Productions, has 3 films and two stage plays in development.
Wild Thyme Productions has toured six accessible and innovative productions of Shakespeare’s plays in the UK and Germany and mounted world premiere showcases and readings. Primarily engaged as a Consultant, Joan’s casting and coordination skills for live performances, recordings and filming have been put to use by the BBC, the National Theatre, ENO and the Royal Opera House. Joan was also a Consultant for BBC Radio Two and BBC Television’s UK-wide search for New Talent programmes.
John Cameron
Mr. Cameron is a British composer, arranger, conductor and musician. He is well known for his many film, TV and stage credits, and for his contributions to "pop" recordings, notably those by Donovan, Cilla Black and the group Hot Chocolate.
John Cameron's composing and arranging covers an amazing array of music genres, from rock, soul, jazz and folk music, through electronic, world, orchestral and choral music, working in film, television, theatre of all kinds, and recording. His career in music started in earnest at Cambridge University where he was Vice-President of the Footlights and busy in many forms of music, most notably the local jazz scene. On coming down, he was soon writing arrangements for artists such as Donovan (within 6 months he had his first no.1 hit in the US with Donovan's Sunshine Superman that he arranged with Spike Heatley). John became Donovan's music director, touring with him, and arranging hit singles Jennifer Juniper, & Epistle to Dippy, & the Sunshine Superman & Mellow Yellow albums, and subsequently arranging Donovan's music for Ken Loach's Poor Cow.
John went on to work extensively in Television, as music director and arranger for three series of Once More With Felix (with folk-singer Julie Felix), The Bobbie Gentry Show and numerous shows in Stanley Dorfman's In Concert series, featuring artists such as James Taylor, Joni Mitchell and Randy Newman.
Meanwhile in the late 60s John had two hits as a songwriter with If I Thought You'd Ever Change Your Mind a no.11 hit in the UK charts for Cilla Black (and coincidentally a no.11 UK hit for Agnetha Faltskog some decades later!) and Sweet Inspiration, a Top Ten record for Johnny Johnson and the Bandwagon.
John's entry into film composition happened when Ken Loach asked him to compose the score for Kes, which has become one of the best regarded British films of the 20th Century. He was soon composing the music for films as diverse as The Ruling Class (with Peter O'Toole), Nightwatch (with Elizabeth Taylor) and A Touch of Class for which he was nominated for an Academy Award (Oscar).
Meanwhile his arranging and song-writing career had taken a new turn. His band CCS, a jazz-funk outfit fronted by Alexis Korner, had four UK hits with Whole Lotta Love (which turned into the iconic theme music for Top of the Pops for decades), Walking, Tap Turns On The Water, & Brother. He also worked as arranger with Hot Chocolate on every single from Emma to Heaven Is In The Back Seat Of My Cadillac, including You Sexy Thing and Every One's A Winner. Similarly, John worked as arranger with Heatwave on three albums, including the singles Boogie Nights, Always & Forever, The Groove Line and Gangsters of the Groove.
Another total change of direction came at the end of the 70's when John was approached by Alain Boublil and Claude Michel Schonberg to arrange and conduct a "concept" album based on Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. Initially a French production in Paris directed by Robert Hossein, and then produced by Cameron Mackintosh and the RSC, directed by Trevor Nunn and John Caird, this became and has remained one of the most popular musicals of all time. Every version of the show for almost 30 years had the mark of John's orchestral score. John won a Drama Desk award and a National Broadway Theatre Award for this score.
Another of John's long-running successes was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. John wrote the orchestrations for the 1991 show which has now re-emerged as the Reality TV version. Other shows John has arranged/supervised include Spend, Spend, Spend and Honk, both award winning productions. Dramatic productions for which John has written the music include Simon Russel Beale's Hamlet, Michael Bogdanov's Faust, Beckett, starring Dougray Scott and numerous productions at the Schauspielhaus in Hamburg.
John's next theatrical project was his collaboration with the Gipsy Kings on the score for Zorro the Musical, which opened in the West End in 2008 and for which he was nominated for an Olivier Award in 2009.
In 2013 John was honoured to be commissioned by the Hubei Province Cultural Ministry, China, to write the musical Nils Wonderful Adventures. As well as the music, John wrote the original English lyrics which were translated into mandarin by the book writer Shuang Zou. It opened in Wuhan, China in November 2013 with John conducting opening night. This show has subsequently toured provincial Chinese cities to great acclaim and is being prepared for opening in Beijing and Shanghai in 2015. It's also being developed with Scottish Opera as a bi-lingual collaboration with the Wuhan Peoples Theatre. John, director David Freeman and designer Don Potra were the only non-chinese creatives in the entire cast and crew.
In the meantime, films and recordings have not been neglected. Mini-series ranging from the Emmy Award winning Jack the Ripper (starring Michael Caine), through Disney's Little House on the Prairie and The Path To 9-11 for which John himself was nominated for an Emmy, films from The Mirror Crack'd till To End All Wars, and extensive recordings with artists such as Jose Carreras and the Choir of New College Oxford have featured in John's musical life. He recently produced, arranged and and conducted an album of Heroic Songs with Swedish baritone Carry Persson in Vienna and Bratislava.
While working with the New College Oxford choir, John took a six month sabbatical to research and compose his cantata Missa Celtica which he recorded with the choir, the English Chamber Orchestra, and various Celtic soloists.
Recently there has been renewed interest in John's retro years with the release of the Kes soundtrack, a re-release of John's early jazz album Off Centre, and of the DVD and soundtrack of cult movie Psychomania, and soon of the soundtrack from The Protectors. He has recently returned to live playing with his trio JohnCameron3, reviving the jazz funk style first found on his recording Off Centre by the John Cameron Quartet. johncameron3.com
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Gary Leo
Mr. Leo is a seasoned management and fundraising executive with more than 40 years’ professional experience in institutional development for major non-profit organizations, both in the US and internationally.
As the former president and chief executive officer of The ALS Association, the US’s preeminent organization in the fight against Lou Gehrig’s disease, he grew the association from a $30 million to $50 million philanthropic operation. In addition, Leo was instrumental in recruiting Actress Angela Lansbury to serve as the ALS Association’s national spokesperson, tapping her talents for a multi-faceted marketing campaign spanning television and print media as well as social media outreach.
A nationally recognized management and fundraising professional, Leo has created and implemented ground-breaking strategic plans personally managed and supervised hundreds of senior professionals and directed diverse programmes and events involving both celebrities and philanthropic leaders.
Mr. Leo most recently served as executive director of the American Friends of the USA/Israel Binational Science Foundation. In this role, Leo spearheaded all U.S. fundraising efforts, resulting in $2 million in new funds in the first two years alone.
DR. DENNIS CHOI (Medical Advisor)
Dr. Dennis Choi, MD., PhD. received his Medical Degree from the combined Harvard University/Massachusetts Institute of Technology joint Health Sciences and Technology Programme, as well as a PhD in Pharmacology from Harvard. Dr. Choi is a Board certified Neurologist, Professor and Chair, Department of Neurology at the Stony Brook University School of Medicine and Director of Stony Brook University’s Neurosciences Institute
Dr. Choi began his academic career at Stanford University, soon being promoted to Associate Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences. In 1991, he moved to Washington University where he was appointed the Andrew B. and Gretchen P. Jones Professor and Head of Neurology, and Neurologist-in-Chief at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. While at Washington University, Dr. Choi also served as the Founding Director of the Centre for the Study of Nervous System Injury and the Director of the McDonnell Centre for Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology. In 2001, Dr. Choi moved to become Executive Vice-President for Neurosciences at Merck Research Labs. In 2006 he returned to academia; and in 2007 was appointed the Executive Director of the Comprehensive Neurosciences Initiative at Emory University, later additionally serving as Vice President for Academic Health Affairs of the Woodruff Health Sciences Centre at Emory. In 2010, Dr. Choi left Emory to serve as Executive Vice President of the Simons Foundation in New York City, New York, USA.
Over his career, Dr. Choi has made a profound and lasting impact on the science of neurological disorders. He has penned over 170 peer-reviewed scientific papers, over 60 review articles and over 50 book chapters, editing 6 books along the way. Dennis is also highly sought after for his scientific insights, serving on too-numerous-to-count NIH and governmental advisory committees, including the advisory council of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and more recently the advisory council of the National Institute on Aging (NIA), the Board on Life Sciences of the National Academy of Science and the Forum on Neuroscience and Nervous System Disorders of the Institute of Medicine. Dennis also has provided insights into non-governmental scientific institutes, including the Max-Planck Institute in Heidelberg, Germany, the Grass Foundation, the Hereditary Disease Foundation, and the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation.
In addition to his prodigious contributions to the literature of neurological disorders, Dr. Choi has also served on the other side of scholarly publications as the Founding Co-Editor of Neurobiology of Disease and a senior editor of Brain Research, as well as serving on the editorial boards of over 25 distinct scientific journals.
During his distinguished career Dr. Choi has received numerous awards, including the Christopher Reeve Research Medal and the Ho-Am Prize in Medical Science. He was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, served as President of the Society for Neuroscience and was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science.
DR. MOEIN MOGHIMI (Science Advisor)
Dr. Moein Moghimi, PhD., is a Professor and Chair of Pharmaceutics at Durham University, UK. Previously, he was based at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, where he served as Professor of Nanomedicine at the Department of Pharmacy, Professor of Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology at the NanoScience Centre and Director of the Centre for Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology and Nanotoxiocology. Professor Moghimi is also a full member and affiliate professor at the Department of Translational Imaging, Houston Methodist Research Institute (Weill Cornell Medical College affiliate), Houston Methodist Hospital Systems, Houston, Texas (USA), adjunct professor at the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Colorado-Denver Medical Centre (USA), visiting professor at Università Degli Studi Di Padova (Italy) and elected Fellow of the Institute of Nanotechnology (UK). Between 2008 and 2010, he served as the Honorary Professor of Nanomedicine at the Multidisciplinary Research Centre, Shantou University (China).
Dr. Moghimi’s research has made major contributions to design and surface engineering of nanoparticles and functional nanosystems for anti-cancer nanomedicine as well as in designing better mechanistic understanding of nanomaterial/polymer-mediated infusion reactions and cytotoxicity. He has been the recipient of many research awards, securing over €10 million in competitive research funds as the principal investigator, as well as partnering two large-scale competitive European Commission FP-7 programmes in translational nanomedicine/drug delivery, addressing Alzheimer’s disease and atherosclerosis with secured total consortium budgets of €14 million and €8.5 million, respectively.
Dr. Moghimi has over 230 peer-reviewed publications/patents to his credit, with approximately 11000 citations (Google Scholar) and h-index of 46 (March 2015). His editorial activities have included the role of Theme Editor for Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews (Elsevier), Maturitas (Elsevier), Journal of Biomedical Nanotechnology (American Scientific Publishers) and Current Drug Delivery (Bentham). He further functions as the Associate Editor of Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology and Medicine (Elsevier) and Journal of Biomedical Nanotechnology as well as Section Editor (Immunology) for Current Pharmaceutical Biotechnology. Dr. Moghimi also features on the editorial board of several high-impact peer-reviewed scientific international journals to include Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews, Nanomedicine-UK (Future Medicine), Journal of Liposome Research (Informa Healthcare) and Molecular and Cellular Therapies (BioMed Central). Over the past two decades, Dr. Moghimi has been practicing in the capacity of consultant to over 50 pharmaceutical, biotechnology, health and food industries, as well as investment banks, management consultancy firms and other entrepreneurial enterprises worldwide. He is a regular invited assessor and expert evaluator in nanomedicine/nanotoxicology for governmental bodies, research councils and private organizations (over 50 establishments in 25 countries). As a frequent speaker, chair and organizer, Dr. Moghimi has given over 300 invited speeches, keynotes and plenaries at international scientific conferences, universities and governmental and multi-national organizations.
Following completion of secondary education at d’Overbroeck’s College Oxford (UK), Dr. Moghimi read biochemistry at the University of Manchester (UK) and in 1989 earned his PhD in biochemistry (liposome immunobiology) from Charing Cross Hospital Medical School (Imperial College, University of London). He then completed a four-year SERC-funded post-doctoral training programme in Advanced Drug Delivery Research at the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences (University of Nottingham, UK) under the guidance of Professor. S. S. Davis. Before joining Copenhagen, Dr. Moghimi was Senior Lecturer in Biopharmacy and Molecular Pharmaceutics at the School of Pharmacy, University of Brighton (UK) and the University Research Fellow in Advanced Drug Delivery Systems at the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Nottingham (UK). His research activities are focused on pharmaceutical nanoscience, fundamental/translational nanomedicine and nanosafety.
