Thomas Meyer MD

Prof. Meyer is a specialist in neurology with an additional qualification in palliative medicine. He is the head of the ALS outpatient clinic, which he founded in January 2002 at the Charite. Already during his medical studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Prof. Meyer began to deal with scientific questions relating to ALS. In 1992 he first visited a specialized ALS center in the USA (San Francisco) that pursued a multi-professional and integrative approach.

From 1993 to 1996 he worked on the molecular genetic basis of ALS at Mount Sinai Medical School in New York (1993/1994) and at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Genetics in Berlin (1995/1996). From 1997 to the end of 2001 he went to the University Clinic in Ulm to continue the molecular genetic work on ALS. He also worked in Ulm in patient care and diagnostics of neurological and psychiatric diseases. In 2001 he acquired the license to teach neurology (Habilitation).

In January 2002 he returned to Berlin and set up the ALS outpatient clinic at the Virchow Clinic campus of the Charité. Since 2003 he has developed the ALS clinic into a center for specialized ALS treatment and for clinical studies in ALS. From 2003 to date, more than 20 clinical studies have been carried out under his leadership in cooperation with the research-based pharmaceutical industry, other university hospitals, or on his own initiative.

In 2007, in addition to clinical research, another focal point was developed: the use of telemedicine and internet technologies to support outpatient care in ALS. In March 2011 he founded together with the neurologist Prof. Dr. Christoph Münch the "Ambulanzpartner" supply network.

His current main areas of work are The optimal provision and use of current treatment methods for people with ALS (“managed care”), the further development and creation of new forms of care (healthcare research), and the implementation of clinical studies to identify new drugs and therapeutic approach for ALS (clinical research). In the field of ALS basic research, the focus is on projects on TDP-43 (molecular and pathological research), neurofilament light chain (biomarker research), and genetic factors of ALS (genetic therapy research). There are numerous collaborations within the Charite and with national, European, and American partners.