Rita Horvath MD, PHD, University of Cambridge

Rita Horvath is a clinical academic who was trained as a neurologist in Budapest, Hungary and completed her PhD on mitochondrial disease. She started laboratory research in Eric Shoubridge`s laboratory at the Montreal Neurological Institute as a visiting scientist. She has been working in mitochondrial diagnostic and research in Munich from 1999 to 2007, when she was appointed as Lecturer in the Mitochondrial Research Group at Newcastle University.

She has established her research group to study mitochondrial translation deficiencies and obtained substantial funding from MRC, ERC and recently Wellcome. She was promoted to Professor of Neurogenetics in 2013. As a clinician, she developed a new service in Newcastle for patients with inherited peripheral neuropathies (Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, CMT), which is a base for her expanding research activities. In September 2018 Rita took on a new post as Director of Research (Clinical) at the Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge. The focus of her research is to identify key molecular disease mechanisms with the aim of developing treatments for patients with rare inherited neurological conditions, such as mitochondrial disease and CMT.