Theme Co-Lead for Neuromuscular Disease, Rare Diseases and Mitochondrial Dysfunction
Volker Straub is Professor of Neuromuscular Genetics at Newcastle University. He trained as a paediatric neurologist at the University of Dussledorf and the University of Essen, Germany. Following this, he completed his PhD on Duchenne muscular dystrophy and took up a postgraduate post in Kevin Campbell’s laboratory at the University of Iowa, on limb girdle muscular dystrophies (LGMD).
In 2003 he joined Newcastle University as the Deputy Director of the Institute of Genetic Medicine (until 2019), and leads the John Walton Muscular Dystrophy Research Centre.
Professor Straub’s interest in muscle diseases is in translational research. He was the co-founder of the EU FP6 funded network of excellence for genetic neuromuscular diseases, TREAT-NMD, which he coordinated with Professor Kate Bushby. He is a long standing core member of the TREAT-NMD TACT committee, which offers guidance on the translation and development path of therapeutics programs in rare neuromuscular diseases.
His current research involves the application of muscle imaging, the use of zebrafish and mouse models, next generation sequencing and other –omics technologies for the characterization of primary neuromuscular disorders.
Read more about Professor Straub’s research here