Two UF doctors are continuing the legacy of conducting research that won their mentors the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award.
Dr. Michael Okun and Dr. Kelly Foote have worked with experts in deep brain stimulation: Dr. Mahlon DeLong, a neurologist at the Emory University School of Medicine, and Dr. Alim-Louis Benabid, professor of biophysics in Grenoble, France.
“We once went to study with the masters, and now it seems that people assume that we are the masters,” Foote said.
Okun, professor of neurology at the UF Center for Movement Disorders and Neurorestoration, studied under DeLong, a man he described as “exceptional,” at Emory University in the late 1990s.
“He is a world-class scientist,” Okun said. “I definitely have tried to model myself after him in as many ways as possible.”
DeLong, a neurologist, was the first person to see how a part of the brain known as the basal ganglia affected Parkinson’s disease, according to a press release.
Foote, a UF neurosurgeon, said he is the only person to have studied under DeLong and Benabid.
He had just completed a fellowship in radiosurgery when Dr. William Friedman, who worked with Foote at UF, offered him a position as a faculty member.
“He asked me what it would take to get me to stay,” he said. “I told him I really wanted to study deep brain stimulation in France with Dr. Benabid, so we came to an arrangement.”
The partnership between Okun and Foote has helped them achieve the dream they shared of creating a brain stimulation center at UF.
The Center for Movement Disorders and Neurorestoration, opened in 2002, helps more than 8,000 patients, Okun said.
“We treat patients with all types of motion problems,” he said. “The majority will not get surgery, but they will get treatment.”
It’s more than he expected decades after he met Okun, Foote said.
“I never would have imagined the level of success that we have had,” he said. “It’s been a pretty amazing ride. Honestly, I didn’t expect my relationship with my friend Mike to be as important as it ended up being.”
[A version of this story ran on page 9 on 9/12/2014 under the headline "Neuroscientists’ mentors awarded prestigious medical award"]
