Find us on Facebook
Epilepsy Research Boost
Sick Kids specialist heads Edinburgh epilepsy research centre.
The new Muir Maxwell Childhood Epilepsy Research Centre, which is fast becoming the UK's leading centre for research into paediatric epilepsy, has appointed a paediatric epilepsy specialist from the Sick Children's Hospital as its head.
Dr Richard Chin, who also works for Edinburgh University, will sit at the heart of an international network of researchers working on aspects of child epilepsy.
Dr Chin said: "We're a virtual centre. We have researchers all the way from biological scientists up to population health scientists, and importantly, we have people who are working in social sciences as well."
The centre is named after Muir Maxwell, now 15, who has severe myoclonic epilepsy, also known as Dravet's Syndrome.
Dr Chin took up his new post last year, but has already impressed Muir's mother Ann, who set up the Muir Maxwell Epilepsy Trust in 2003 to fund research into childhood epilepsy.
Ann said: "He's been just months in post but his impact has been quite mesmerising. We're pretty stunned by how quickly he's taken hold of the baton.
"We pledged to raise £1m over five years which would form the start-up capital for the research team. I would hope the outcomes will be so dramatic and so impressive that that will result in substantial funding thereafter and that the centre will pretty much become self-funding."
