Neurodevelopmental disorders, EEG, Data Science, Computational Phenotyping, Bioinformatics
BA, Cognitive Science & History, Vassar College
MSc, Informatics, University of Edinburgh
PhD Candidate, Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania
West Chester, Pennsylvania
History, furniture making, exercise and race training
Dr Davidson is the Director of Translational Research at ENDD, the Chief Scientific Strategy Officer and Director of the Raymond G. Perelman Center for Cellular and Molecular Therapeutics and the Arthur V. Meigs endowed Chair in Pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She is also Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and Professor of Genetics at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania.
In 2019, Dr Davidson was elected a member of the National Academy of Medicine for her “being on the forefront of developing innovative therapies and medicines for fatal, inherited brain disorders, which are engineered to either remove toxic proteins or replace missing proteins, and for improving or preventing disease progression.”
Dr Davidson received her B.S. in Biology from Nebraska Wesleyan University, and Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry from University of Michigan. She completed postdoctoral studies in Molecular Genetics at the University of Michigan. Recent honors include election into the American Academy of Arts. She is the current president of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy, the largest international association of gene and cell therapy research.
Dr Helbig is the Director of Clinical Research at ENDD, an attending Pediatric Neurologist in the Division of Neurology and the Director of Genomic Science at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), and an Assistant Professor of Neurology at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania.
Dr Helbig co-headed the EuroEPINOMICS-RES Consortium, the European counterpart of the NIH-funded Epi4K consortium involved in collaborative genomic studies to identify genes for human epilepsies. He was part of the Genetics Commission of the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) and the Epilepsiome Task Force of the ILAE Genetics Commission, which aims to increase genetic literacy in the epilepsy community. He is an expert in clinical genetics and clinical care for several monogenic neurodevelopmental disorders. His work has led to greater understanding of how genetic changes lead to severe epilepsies including STXBP1, SYNGAP1, GRIN2A, CHD2, KCNA2, HCN1, and DNM1. Recently, his focus has shifted to development of clinical outcome measures and biomarkers for clinical trials.
He received an MD at Ruprechts-Karl University Heidelberg, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany. He completed a fellowship in Pediatric Epileptology at the Epilepsy Research Centre, Melbourne, Australia, and did residencies in Pediatrics and Neuropediatrics at the University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, and Child Neurology at CHOP.
SYNGAP1-related neurodevelopmental disorder, clinical trial readiness, EEG biomarkers, electronic medical data, machine learning/AI, seizure prediction
BS, Honours Physiology, McGill University
PhD, Computational Neuroscience, University of Chicago
MD, University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine
Toronto, Canada