James Garbern, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of the Department of Neurology and the Wayne State University School of Medicine’s Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics, has been appointed a fellow of the American Academy of Neurology.

“My selection to fellowship status in the American Academy of Neurology is a distinct honor that recognizes my longstanding interests both in understanding how the nervous system works and in helping people with neurologic diseases,” said Dr. Garbern, who has been a member of the AAN since 1983.

In addition to longstanding work on the hereditary brain white matter disorder Pelizaeus-Merzbacher Disease, Dr. Garbern also researches and evaluates patients with other white matter diseases or leukodystrophies. As director of the Neurogenetics Center at the Detroit Medical Center, he evaluates and counsels patients with hereditary disorders of the nervous system. His work has helped to identify and characterize several new clinical syndromes, including forms of dementia, spastic paraparesis and autism, as well as leukodystrophies.

Dr. Garbern evaluates patients with hereditary neuromuscular diseases through the Muscular Dystrophy and Charcot-Marie-Tooth clinics directed by Michael Shy, M.D., where he has identified a new form of hereditary motor neuron disease.

“Along with an excellent group of genetic counselors, we have recently opened a clinic for patients with lysosomal storage diseases,” Dr. Garbern said. “We provide both evaluations and genetic counseling for people with these diseases, and can now offer specialized infusion therapy for a growing number of these diseases, such as Fabry Disease, Gaucher Disease and mucopolysaccharidoses.”