Description:

In this session from our 2024 family and research conference, Dr. Christelle Achkar shares what we know about the role of genetics and precision medicine in epilepsy surgery.

Dr. Achkar is an attending physician in the Epilepsy Genetics Program and the Division of Epilepsy and Neurophysiology at Boston Children’s Hospital. She is fluent in English, Arabic, and French, and studied biology before attending the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) for medical school. Prior to coming to Boston Children’s for her child neurology residency, Dr. Achkar completed her pediatric residency at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland as well as a research fellowship on the use of intracranial EEG recording of high frequency waves in mapping eloquent cortical areas at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center. She completed an additional clinical fellowship year under Drs. Annapurna Poduri and Heather Olson in the Epilepsy Genetics Program, during which she focused on the diagnosis and management of multiple causes of epilepsy genetics. Her training also includes autism spectrum disorder clinics under the supervision of Dr. Sarah Spence.

Dr. Achkar’s main research and clinical interest is precision medicine and the application of novel therapies in rare genetic epilepsies, including anti-sense oligonucleotide therapies (ASOs). She has been a principal investigator on several N-of-1 ASO trials for rare neurological conditions developed at BCH by Dr. Tim Yu’s lab and works on clinical trial design for rare epilepsies.