Prof Joshua Burns awarded the Vice-Chancellor's Award and major NIH grant

Congratulations to Professor Joshua Burns, Director of the Paediatric Gait Analysis Service of NSW and the Humpty Dumpty Gait Lab at the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network, and Professor of Paediatric Neuromuscular Rehabilitation at the University of Sydney recent major successes!

Prof Burns has been awarded the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Research Higher Degree Supervision. The annual award by the University of Sydney recognises Prof Burns’ outstanding teaching, excellence in research supervision, mentorship and support of students.

In addition to this, he has also been awarded a U01 National Institutes of Health grant as part of a multicentre study to Accelerate Clinical Trials in Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (ACTCMT). The ACTCMT study will accelerate progress towards effective treatment for Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT). CMT is the most common genetic nerve disorder and there is currently no cure. The disease causes muscle weakness, foot drop, sensory loss and difficulty with balance and hand function which often affects a child’s quality of life.

Prof Burns will be working alongside Dr Paula Bray, an occupational therapist and post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Sydney based at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead with an interest on the clinical care and rehabilitation of children with nerve and muscle diseases. Through this grant, they will further their work in validation of new methods to detect the progress of CMT – essential for conducting successful clinical trials of new treatments for patients with CMT1A.