Rita Horvath
Rita Horvath is an academic neurologist 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 subsequently worked in mitochondrial diagnostics and research in Munich from 1999 to 2007, before being appointed as Lecturer in the Mitochondrial Research Group at Newcastle University. There she established her research group to study mitochondrial translation deficiencies and obtained substantial funding from MRC, ERC and Wellcome and 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 was 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, where in 2023 she was appointed Professor of Neurogenetics and become a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. 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. Throughout her career she has combined fundamental experimental work with clinical studies. Her work improved patient care through preclinical therapy development, but also by conducting natural history studies and clinical trials in mitochondrial diseases and other rare inherited neurological diseases. She has established extensive international collaborations, affecting change in Europe, as well as underserved groups in countries where such expertise is lacking, disseminating the results widely to scientists, clinicians, patients and the public.