Featured academic: Professor Kathryn North

Professor North’s laboratory research interests focus on the molecular basis of inherited muscle disorders – particularly muscular dystrophies and congenital myopathies – as well as genes which influence normal skeletal muscle function and elite athletic performance.

Neuromuscular disorders are major causes of ongoing disability in childhood. They cause progressive and disabling weakness and often an affected child will lose the ability to walk. In children whose breathing and swallowing muscles are affected respiratory failure and early death may result. While some of these disorders are treatable, for many children there is currently no cure. Most neuromuscular disorders of childhood are genetic and more than one person in a family may be affected, e.g., the muscular dystrophies are a group of hereditary muscle diseases which can result in severe and often-progressive muscle weakness.

At the Children’s Hospital, Professor North has established the Clinical Neurogenetics Service which currently cares for more than 1,500 patients and their families. Professor North’s clinical research focuses on clinical trials of therapies for muscular dystrophy as well as the development of interventions for children with learning disabilities.

Professor North is Douglas Burrows Professor of Paediatrics and Child Health at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Head of the Discipline of Paediatrics and Child Health and Associate Dean. She also heads the hospital’s Neurogenetics Research Unit and Deputy Head of the Institute for Neuromuscular Research.