Presenter: Dr. O. Carter Snead

Biography: Dr. Snead received a BSc in Pharmacy and an MD, both from the University of West Virginia School of Medicine. Subsequently, he trained in Pediatrics at Duke University Medical Centre and Child Neurology at Yale University School of Medicine. This was followed by a two year stint in the United States Air Force where Dr. Snead was stationed at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi MS. He has held academic positions first at the University of Alabama in Birmingham School of Medicine where he was at the Alabama Children’s Hospital and at the University of Southern California School of Medicine where he was Head of Child Neurology. From 1996-2012 he was Head of the Division of Neurology at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. Currently, he is a staff neurologist and clinician scientist in the Division of Neurology and a senior scientist in the Research Institute at the Hospital for Sick Children. As well he is a Professor of Pediatrics, Neurology, & Pharmacology and a member of the Institute for Medical Sciences at the University of Toronto. Dr. Snead’s major clinical and research interest is in Pediatric Epilepsy. He developed the epilepsy surgery program at SickKids and has pioneered the use of this surgical therapeutic modality in children with medically refractory epilepsy. He has done seminal research in the use of MEG as a non-invasive diagnostic modality to help identify children who are candidates for epilepsy surgery. He pioneered research into the neurobiology of ã-hydroxybutyric acid, also known as GHB. He is an expert in animal models of epilepsy, being among the first to develop animal models of absence and atypical absence epilepsy and to characterize GABAB-mediated mechanisms of these disorders. In addition, Dr. Snead has developed an animal model of infantile spasms in Down syndrome and shown the effectiveness of genetic and pharmacological rescue strategies in this model. More recently, Dr. Snead has led the effort to transform epilepsy care for tens of thousands of infants, children, and adults in Ontario Canada over the last 8 years through the development of comprehensive epilepsy care in Ontario, the Ontario Epilepsy Network, and Project ECHO - Epilepsy Across the Life Span in Ontario. Dr. Snead recently has been designated a Founder of Child neurology by the Child Neurology Society and the International Child Neurology Association.