Professor Akkari is a pharmacogeneticist and neuromuscular geneticist with 28 years of research experience in Australia and the US. 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 leads the dually based Motor Neurone Diseases Genetics and Therapeutics group at Murdoch’s Centre for Molecular Medicine and Innovative Therapeutics (CMMIT) and the Perron Institute who are focused on how short structural variations within the human genome contribute to the missing heritability of sALS and how these can be co-developed with therapies for improving 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 Pharmaceuticals, an ALS drug development company.

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

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