Orhun H. Kantarci MD

Orhun H Kantarci, M.D. a nationally recognized multiple sclerosis expert. He received the distinguished NATO science fellowship award (1998) and the National Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Society Advanced Fellowship award (1999) to complete his post-graduate training and extend his work on genetic determinants of the natural history of MS. Dr. Kantarci's research before and during this time resulted in further establishing the direction of genetic epidemiology studies in MS towards understanding the genetic determinants of long-term outcome in MS as opposed to studying the determinants of susceptibility in MS.

This study has since provoked multiple publications by others in this area in high impact journals leading to an invited editorial by Dr. Kantarci in the journal "Neurology" (2008). To further his work in this area, Dr. Kantarci was awarded a CR20 award (2008-active) by the Center for Translational Science Activities (CTSA) to study "gender dependent epigenetic regulation of IFNG in multiple sclerosis". Results from this study has for the first time shown an interaction of gender and age in determining methylation-based regulation of IFNG.