About ESCO - The European STXBP1 Consortium
ESCO is an investigator-driven consortium, currently consisting of 8 European partner countries, to promote trial readiness for the treatment of STXBP1-related disorders. ESCO brings together clinicians and researchers from the partner countries and works closely together with patient families and industry.
ESCO's Mission
The mission of ESCO is to promote clinical and pre-clinical research on STXBP1-related disorders, to prepare for successful and efficient evaluation of new therapies, once available and to promote equal and evidence-based access to new therapies.
Executive Board of ESCO
Prof. dr. Matthijs Verhage
(CNCR, Amsterdam)
Prof. dr. Matthijs Verhage is founder of the ESCO consortium. He started working on Munc18/STXBP1 in 1993 and has published almost 50 scientific studies on the topic, including the first mouse models, the first functional analyses of patient mutations in neurons, the first analyses of patient-derived neurons, and the first EEG-study. He is member of the scientific advisory board of the international STXBP1 foundation and several pharma/biotech companies operating in this space. He is also chair of the Dutch Brainmodel consortium (https://brainmodel.nl) that develops cell-based diagnostics for STXBP1-related disorders
dr. Ganna Balagura
(Università degli Studi di Genova and CNCR Amsterdam)
Dr. Ganna Balagura is co-founder of the ESCO consortium, and has been involved in clinical studies and phenotypic data analysis of STXBP1 patients for many years. She is an MD PhD with broad interest in neurodevelopmental disorders, with research focus both at the bench and at the bedside. She is partner of the Italian STXBP1 families association.
Dr. Hannah Stamberger
(UZA, Antwerp)
Dr. Hannah Stamberger is an adult neurologist at the University Hospital of Antwerp and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. As a neurologist she is active in the epilepsy outpatient clinic at the neurology department of the University Hospital in Antwerp which is a reference center for rare genetic epilepsies in Belgium. She further works as a postdoctoral researcher in the Weckhuysen team at the VIB-Center for Molecular Neurology where she contributes to research on genetic epilepsy syndromes. Unraveling the clinical and genetic spectrum of STXBP1-RD has been one of the main focuses of her research with more recent projects on the characterization of motor problems seen in STXBP1-RD and on the adult phenotype.
Dr. Andrea Soto Padilla
Dr. Andrea Soto Padilla has a scientific research background focused on the underlying mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases and on the neurophysiological correlates of social behavior. After her time in academia, Andrea worked as a consultant for biotech firms, helping them develop their business plans and secure funding. A few years later, she became an Associate at EQT Life Sciences to build their Dementia Fund. Through this work, she met and joined Amsterdam Neuroscience as a Business Developer to help push academic innovations into real-life solutions.