Rare Epilepsy Research, Precision Medicine & the Future of Genetic Therapies

I think we are entering right now into a new era of treatment, and this treatment will be in the form of precision medical treatment, and that's really exciting, I think.

[outro music] Hi, everyone.

I am Dr. Nancy Messara, and you are listening to the "KCNA2 and Rare Epilepsy Podcast." Hi, everybody, and welcome to "KCNA2 and Rare Epilepsy Podcast." In this podcast today, we're going to talk to a real researcher who is actually on the front lines with his team of advancing our understanding of rare epilepsies, the outcome, the functions, what do these rare epilepsies really do.

We're gonna focus on this to help listeners understand why research matters.

So today, we're gonna be talking with Dr. Jan Hänsel-Driecha, who is involved with rare epilepsy and neurological research at Heidelberg University.

He works within pediatric epilepsy, um, in- within the research program focused on understanding genetic rare epilepsies.

So welcome to our podcast, Dr. Hänsel.

How you doing?

Fine, thanks.

Um, thank you, Nancy, for having me at your podcast.

Um, yeah, I'm really glad to be here and excited.

And you're all-- you're coming all the way from Germany today.

Um, and, and I'm in the US, so this is one of those international podcasts that I love to do.

And so let's just start by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Yeah.

Um, I'm, I'm a physician by training.

Um, so I, um, started at the hospital after my studies in Germany and France, um, at the Heidelberg University Hospital as, um, a pediatrician.

And later, I got specialized in child neurology.

Um, and I'm still working in the hospital, um, a- as a child neurologist, um, every day.

But I'm, um, in a special situation, I would say, because I'm a physician researcher.

That means, um, another part of my everyday work is research, clinical research.

Um, and, um, I can translate the questions I have out of my, um, everyday patient care work, um, into clinical or research questions, uh, I try to answer with my team or our team here in Heidelberg.

Um, besides that, um, I'm living in Heidelberg.

As I said before, it's a small town in the south of Germany, um, surrounded by, uh, hills with a nice river and a castle on the hillside, so it's a very nice place to be.

And in addition, um, it has huge university and, um, associated, um, institutions, which makes it a really perfect place to, um, research and work.