Professor Anthony Akkari is a pharmacogeneticist and neuromuscular geneticist with 28 years of research experience in Australia and the US. He co-leads the Motor Neurone Disease Genetics and Therapeutics Research group with Dr Loren Flynn at the Perron Institute and Personalised Medicine Centre, Murdoch University. Professor Akkari completed his PhD is neuromuscular disease genetics at Curtin University, later undertaking postdoctoral research at Duke University, Division of Neurology, where he continues his ongoing collaborations and is an Adjunct Professor.

He is the Director of the Personalised Medicine Centre and also serves as the Foundation Chair of Industrial Pharmacogenetics at Murdoch University.  His research focuses on understanding how short structural variations within the human genome contribute to the missing heritability of sporadic ALS (sALS) and how these insights can be used to co-develop therapies that improve the success of ALS clinical trials.

Professor Akkari’s industry experience includes a history in the USA pharmaceutical industry at GSK, and later Eli Lilly and Cabernet Pharmaceuticals, where he focused on integrating genetic data into the drug development profess to drive stratified medicines for patients. Professor Akkari is currently the Chief Scientific Officer of Black Swan Biotech, an ALS/MND drug development company.

He also co-leads the Neuropharmacogenetics project with Associate Professor Jenny Rodger.

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