Christopher G. Goetz, MD, is professor of neurological sciences and pharmacology at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and serves as director of the movement disorders program. Goetz is also the The Parkinson’s Foundation Chair in Neurological Sciences. He is the director of the Rush Parkinson’s Disease Foundation Research Center.
Goetz is a senior Fulbright Scholar and worked for two years at the College de France in Paris. He has served on several national and international advisory boards, including the Tourette Syndrome Association Scientific Advisory Board and Dystonia Medical Research Foundation Advisory Board. He is a reviewer for several journals and is a McHenry Award recipient of the American Academy of Neurology. He is a member of the Movement Disorder Society, the American Neurological Association, the American Academy of Neurology, The American Olser Society, and the French Neurological Society.
Goetz has published over 450 peer-reviewed articles and over 200 book chapters in the field. He has also published and co-authored fourteen books and monographs. He has been one of two co-editors-in-chief of the Movement Disorders journal, and is the former editor-in-chief of Clinical Neuropharmacology. He is the past history section editor of the Archives of Neurology journal, and he has served an editorial board member of the Archives of Neurology. He is an advisory editorial board member of the Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, as well as reviewer for several neurology journals.
He has received the American Academy of Neurology Senior Research Award in Movement Disorders (2015) and the Presidential Stanley Fahn Award from the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society (2009). He is the president-elect of the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.
His major interest is the pharmacology of various movement disorders, including Parkinson’s disease, Gilles de la Tourette’s syndrome, Huntington’s disease and pharmacologic studies of dystonia. He is particularly interested in non-motor aspects of movement disorders, including specifically, hallucinations, cognitive decline and depression. Further research efforts have focused on scale development for evaluating movement disorders, and he has led the Movement Disorder Society Task Force to develop a new version of the UPDRS, termed the MDS-UPDRS, unveiled in 2008. He has a special interest in placebo effects and how they influence the interpretation of clinical trials in Parkinson’s disease and dyskinesia. He has also led pharmacologic and surgical efforts to treat movement disorders.
Goetz and his team are currently investigating the safety and efficacy of gene therapy in patients with Parkinson’s disease and are involved in other studies aimed to prevent the progression of Parkinson’s disease in its early stages. He is an active researcher in the history of neurology and has written extensively with his major research interest being the study of nineteenth century French and U.S. neurology with particular interest in J-M. Charcot and his school. He has written the definitive biography of Charcot (Charcot: Constructing Neurology, Oxford University Press) and Charcot: The Tuesday Lessons (Raven Press).
