Michael Flower

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT MICHAEL FLOWER

Consultant Academic Neurologist at the UCL Institute of Neurology and National Hospital for Neurology.I specialise in neurogenetics, neurodegeneration, movement disorders, DNA repair, stem cells, molecular biology and bioinformatics, particularly Huntington\'s disease (HD) and repeat expansion disorders. My research focuses on DNA repair mechanisms underlying neurogenetic disease and harnessing them to develop therapies and biomarkers. I work on clinical trials, and I am passionate about developing and delivering effective treatments for people with Huntington\'s and neurogenetic diseases.I hold a PhD in Neuroscience from UCL, a Medical degree and Masters in Neuroscience from the University of Cambridge, and a Specialty Certificate in Neurology. I have over 19 years’ experience in neuroscience, contributing significantly to the fields of neurodegeneration, stem cell research and DNA repair.I trained as a Neurology Registrar in London, and have broad clinical expertise spanning neurogenetics, movement disorders, dementia, neuroinflammation, neuromuscular disorders, epilepsy, stroke, headache and general neurology. I have been involved in clinical trials of HTT antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) and am on call consultant for clinical trials in HD at the UCL Institute of Neurology.I am actively involved in the education of neurology trainees and am a member of the Neurology Specialty Certificate Examination (SCE) Board and Neurology SCE Question Writing Group at the Royal College of Physicians.My PhD research examined the role of DNA repair in HD and related repeat expansion diseases. We identified genetic variation that modified disease course and showed they acted through repeat instability, studied transcriptional dysregulation in patients, and developed cell models of DNA repair and repeat instability. My current research involves developing new therapeutics for repeat expansion diseases, including HTT and MSH3 lowering agents, studying the role of transcription and R-loops in repeat instability, the interactions between DNA repair proteins and DNA structures at repeat sequences, creating new assays that measure DNA repair activity and can be used to screen for therapeutics, bioinformatics studies of novel therapeutics in cells and patients, using long read sequencing to phase for clinical trials of allele-specific therapies and the measurement repeat instability, and developing new biomarkers in patient samples, including cerebrospinal fluid.