Pittsburgh, PA, December 1, 2022 – Edward A. Burton, MD, DPhil, FRCP, has been promoted to professor of neurology with tenure, effective December 1, 2022. Dr. Burton was an associate professor with the department of neurology since 2014. He currently holds the UPMC Endowed Chair in Movement Disorders and is also professor of microbiology and molecular genetics.
While he’s thankful to receive the academic promotion, Dr. Burton says the title doesn’t change how he spends his work week in the lab and clinic. “Seeing a patient who suffers from Parkinson’s disease or progressive supranuclear palsy is sufficient motivation to be passionate about delivering high-quality healthcare” says Burton. “The motivation to come back to the lab afterwards is that the treatment for these diseases has not changed significantly since I started training three decades ago. There are no medicines that cure PD or PSP, slow progression, or reverse the damage. That drives me to work in the lab – it’s a bonus that studying this biology is so fascinating.”
As the principal investigator for a research lab at the Pittsburgh Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, Dr. Burton’s research interests focus on understanding the molecular pathophysiology of Parkinson’s disease and progressive supranuclear palsy, which present common and intractable problems in the movement disorders clinic. One of the techniques his research group has pioneered is the use of novel zebrafish models. “Genetically engineered zebrafish models and high-throughput automated neurophenotyping assays have been a game-changer for our work in drug discovery for these diseases. And since larval zebrafish are transparent, we can measure biochemical events inside their brains at subcellular resolution, using fluorescent reporter proteins and confocal microscopy. More recently, we developed a model that allows us to manipulate mitochondrial respiratory chain function in specific neurons of the intact brain, using a clever approach called ‘chemoptogenetics’ that was invented by colleagues at CMU. These are powerful technologies for understanding the molecular events underlying PD and PSP in the living, intact brain, and they have allowed us to contribute to this field.”
In addition to running a research lab, Burton says that being a mentor and educating clinical and research trainees is one of the most fulfilling aspects of his job. “It’s highly rewarding to teach residents and fellows clinical neurology skills they can’t learn from books,” he says, “And helping trainee researchers acquire the skills to analyze data, see where the knowledge gaps are, and formulate ideas for future experiments, is just as enjoyable.”
Dr. Burton trained in general medicine and neurology at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, UK and in movement disorders at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London. He came to UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh in 2004 when the opportunity arose to join the newly formed Pittsburgh Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases.
