Irene Litvan, M.D.

Raymond Lee Lebby Professor of
Parkinson Disease Research

Director, Movement Disorder Program

University of Louisville
Louisville, KY 40292

Phone: 502-852-3655
i.litvan@louisville.edu

Curriculum Vitae

 

 

 

 

Dr. Irene Litvan is the director of the Movement Disorder Program and Raymond Lee Lebby endowed Professor in Parkinson’s disease Research. She received her Medical Degree from the University of Uruguay and later completed her Neurology Residency and fellowship in Neuropsychology and Dementia, at the Hospital Santa Creu i Sant Pau, in Barcelona, Spain. In 1986, Dr. Litvan joined the Experimental Therapeutics Branch, National Institutes of Health (NIH), as a Post-doctoral fellow. After completing a required 2 nd Residency in Neurology at Georgetown University, Dr. Litvan was appointed as a Senior Staff Fellow in the Neuroepidemiology Branch of the National Institute of Neurologic Disorders and Stroke. She left there in 1997 to join the Henry M. Jackson Foundation. In 2000, Dr. Litvan opened her own clinical practice in Bethesda, MD. In late 2002, she joined the faculty of the Neurology Department where she became the director of the Movement Disorders Program and endowed Professor.

 

Dr. Litvan is an American Board-Certified Neurologist. She has published numerous peer-reviewed articles on the diagnosis of neurodegenerative parkinsonian and dementia disorders, as well as on the neuropsychiatry of cortical and subcortical dementias. She was senior editor of the first book on progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) (Oxford University Press, 1992) and of the first book on corticobasal degeneration (CBD) (Lippincott-Press, 2000), she is the single editor of a book on atypical parkinsonian disorders (Humana Press, 2005).

 

Dr. Litvan is a member of the American Neurologic Association and a fellow of the American Academy of Neurology. She serves on many boards and committees. Currently, she is member of the Movement Disorders Society International Executive Committee, Oversight Committee and CME Committee and is also the secretary of the World Federation of Neurology Research Group on Dementia. She is a member of the medical scientific boards of the Society for PSP, PSP Association for England and Europe and the Association for Frontotemporal Dementias.

 

Dr. Litvan is Co-Editor of Moving Along, the newsletter of the Movement Disorder Society since 2000 and she is an ad-hoc reviewer for several medical, neurologic and neuropsychologic journals. She received the NIH merit award for leading international multicenter studies to evaluate and improve the clinical diagnostic criteria of several dementia and parkinsonian neurodegenerative disorders. She is currently directing studies to identify biologic markers, and symptomatic and biologic therapies to slow the course of neurodegenerative disorders and has received a 3.5 million NIH award to study the genetic and environmental factors of PSP, the most frequent atypical parkinsonian disorder.