Joel Oger
Vancouver, Canada

Joel Oger is a Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of British Columbia, Canada, where he has worked for more than 20 years. He is Director of the Multiple Sclerosis Clinic and Director of the Neuroimmunology laboratory. Prior to his Canadian appointments, he worked at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM), Harvard University and the University of Chicago. In collaboration with Dr BGW Arnason, Professor Oger was the first to describe the T-cell abnormalities in multiple sclerosis (MS). He has been a Principal Investigator in key MS clinical trials and was part of the original group who described the effectiveness of interferon beta-1b in reducing the frequency of relapses in MS. His work in Canada has focused on myasthenia gravis and MS models of antibody secretion in vitro, and his laboratory is the Canadian reference centre for measurement of acetylcholine receptor antibodies. Recently he has been involved in the development of an assay to measure antibodies to interferon. Professor Oger has authored or co-authored over 100 papers, focusing mainly on MS and myasthenia gravis. He is a member of the Canadian Neurological Society, the American Neurological Association, the American Academy of Neurology and the Société Française de Neurologie. He is also a Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite (France).