Prof. Peter M. Andersen

Peter M. Andersen studied Neurology at Umeå University Hospital in Umeå, Northern Sweden. Parallel to his neurology training, he did a PhD on disease mechanisms in ALS with a focus on Superoxide dismutase 1, free radical metabolism and clinico-neurogenetics. He graduated in 1997 and also defended his doctoral dissertation on SOD1 and ALS later the same year.

From 1998-99, he was a post-doc medical research fellow at the Cecil B. Day Laboratory for Neuromuscular Research, Harvard Medical School and MGH in Boston. Returning to Umeå University in late 1999, he became a lecturer in Neurology and, in 2010, tenured Professor in Neurology.

He is leading the clinical ALS program at Umeå University Hospital and the ALS research group at the Institute of Clinical Sciences. He has a long standing special interest in ALS-FTD genetics (since 1993), cognition studies (since 1995, ECAS since 2015), biomarkers (superoxides, since 1993), neurofilaments since 1997) and characterization of SOD1 prions (since 2014) in human autopsy material and mice model systems.

He also is a Principal Investigator in FiH, phase I—III clinical drug trials, including the Sweden-only Riluzol trial 1994-1996, and, since 2014, in the antisense oligonucleotide trial, targeting SOD1 and FUS genes, both on advisory boards and as PI.

From 2003 to 2015 he chaired the EFNS Task Force, writing four evidence-based guidelines on the Clinical Management of ALS (MALS). He is the Nordic representative on the current EAN guideline panel since 2016.