Class of 2025
William Barbosa, MD
University of Rochester Rochester, New York
A Personal and Intellectual Journey About 14 years ago, my dad was diagnosed with Parkinson’ s disease. Being part of his journey profoundly shaped my life. I saw how neurologic disease affects everyone— not just the person with the disease, but the entire family— and I saw the powerful role neurologists can play in preserving hope and quality of life. That inspired me to want to play a similar role for others.
In addition to my personal experience, I’ ve always loved science. In my fifth-grade yearbook, I said I wanted to be a pediatrician— probably because that was the only doctor I knew about then! I earned my bachelor’ s degree in biology at Brown University, where I also worked in a cancer biology lab. After a gap year as a lab tech at Brigham and Women’ s Hospital, I attended New York University Grossman School of Medicine and completed my residency at the University of Rochester, where I stayed for the Edmond J. Safra Fellowship.
Building on the Biomarker Breakthrough The Fellowship gave me the time and resources to come into my own as a clinician-researcher. I’ ve served as a proceduralist in the Parkinson’ s Progression Markers
Initiative( PPMI), collecting cerebrospinal fluid and skin biopsy samples— both key to validating promising new biomarker assays. I also studied the safety and feasibility of sample collection over time using data from 13 years of patients’ PPMI participation. I’ m especially interested in optimizing skin biopsy assays. They’ re less invasive, but we still have more to learn about how best to use them.
Moving Forward and Giving Back I’ m staying on as faculty at the University of Rochester to see patients with movement disorders, help roll out skin biopsy testing in clinic and continue my research. Because giving back to the community is important, I will continue to work in a Spanish-language neurology clinic in Rochester. I’ m also developing a new academic exchange program in my home community of Puerto Rico.
The Fellowship has been a vote of confidence and an opportunity that’ s opened a lot of doors for me and, in turn, for my patients. My hope is that we can make Parkinson’ s a less common occurrence and move the field forward to help treat and prevent Parkinson’ s disease as best we can.
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