Announcing Eric Marsh, MD, PhD, as Interim Director of the Orphan Disease Center at the University of Pennsylvania
October 9, 2024
I am pleased to announce that Eric Marsh, MD, PhD, Professor of Neurology at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), Professor of Neurology at the Perelman School of Medicine (PSOM) at the University of Pennsylvania, and Clinical Director of the Orphan Disease Center (ODC) has been named Interim Director of the ODC, effective immediately.
In the United States, orphan diseases are defined as individual disorders that afflict fewer than 200,000 individuals. In the aggregate, over 25 million people in the United States suffer substantial morbidity and mortality from orphan diseases (Orphan Disease Center (upenn.edu)). Despite this significant figure, research in most disease types has lagged far behind other major areas due to a lack of funding and interest in disorders that afflict few people. The ODC was established to facilitate and fund research and develop transformative therapies for rare diseases with significant unmet need.
Dr. Marsh has served as Clinical Director of the ODC for four years and understands deeply the need to help families feel heard and informed, a leadership philosophy that he will underscore as Interim Director. His own work specializes in diagnosing and treating children with neurodevelopmental disorders (including Rett Syndrome), developmental epilepsies, epilepsy, infantile spasms syndrome and malformations of cortical development. Dr. Marsh has successful clinical and basic science research programs on rare neurodevelopmental disorders and epilepsy and a long track record of collaborating with rare disease foundations.
I would like to thank Dr. Marsh for taking on this leadership role for this very important Center, and I am especially grateful for his ability to continue to strengthen the collaborations between PSOM and CHOP. I would also like to thank Dr. Jim Wilson for his skilled leadership of the Center over the past decade.
We plan to initiate a search for a permanent director in the near future, and we welcome the feedback and recommendations of our community during this process. Questions or input can be sent to evpdean@upenn.edu.
Jon Epstein, MD
Interim EVP | Dean