We are delighted to announce the appointment of Dr Ichizo Nishino as the new Chairman of the AOAN Education Task Force following a unanimous agreement by the Council of Delegates during the AOAN Council of Delegate Meeting on 6th October 2021. This appointment will be for 2 (TWO) years and Dr Ichizo will be responsible:
- Announcement of the appointment of New Chairman of the AOAN Education Task Force
- 1. To form the AOAN Educational Task Force with AOAN members experienced and committed to Neurology
- 2. To strategize a plan for organizing education programmes and teaching courses.
- 3. To promote education support for and by Young Neurologists.
- 4. To distribute educational grants among society members.
- 5. To facilitate fellowship programmes among society members.
Dr. Ichizo Nishino is Director of the Department of Neuromuscular Research, National Institute of Neuroscience (NIN), National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry (NCNP). He is also appointed to Director of two departments in Medical Genome Center in NCNP. Currently, he is a Guest/Visiting Professor at four universities: the University of Yamanashi, Kaohsiung Medical University (Taiwan), Peking University (China) and Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University (Thailand).
Dr. Nishino obtained his M.D. in 1989 from Kyoto University. After five years of neurology training supervised by Prof. Jun Kimura, he started muscle disease research in NCNP in 1994 under the supervision of Dr. Ikuya Nonaka. Further, he continued research for 2 years in Columbia University, where Prof Michio Hirano and Prof Salvatore DiMauro guided his research. He was appointed to Section Chief in NIN, NCNP in 2000, and to his current position in 2001. By now, he has published more than 500 PubMed-listed papers in the field.
His laboratory functions as a referral center for muscle disease in Japan, providing diagnostic services for muscle pathology and genetic analysis. In addition, his lab is designated as the national NGS center for hereditary muscle disease by AMED (a governmental funding organization in Japan). His lab collects around 80% of muscle biopsies performed in Japan (1103 cases in 2020), and he signs out all cases. As a result, his muscle repository has more than 21,000 frozen muscle biopsy samples, one of the largest collections of the patient’s muscles.
Dr. Nishino is currently serving as Vice President of Asian-Oceanian Myology Center; Executive Board member/Trustee in several societies, including World Muscle Society, Japanese Muscle Society, Japanese Society of Neuropathology, and Japanese Society of Neurological Therapeutics; Education Committee member for World Federation of Neurology; and Associate Editor/Editorial Board member for more than 10 international journals. In addition, he had been an Executive Committee member for TREAT-NMD until he stepped down just recently. He is also a corresponding Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology (FAAN) and the American Neurological Association (FANA).
Prof. Nishino has been presented with many awards for his contributions in the medical arena, including the Japanese Society of Neurology Award and Uchida Award from Japan Foundation of Cardiovascular Research
We are delighted to have Prof Nishino to be on board gearing the task force and we thank him in advance for his future contribution.