Public Lecture | From genes to hope: Advancing treatments for severe genetic epilepsies

Join us for the first in The Florey’s 2025 Public Lecture Series, recognising World Epilepsy Day – also known as Purple Day. Wearing purple is encouraged! 

With the help of senior researchers and clinicians in the field, as well as patients and their carers, we’ll be talking about severe childhood epilepsy and the way forward with medical research.  

Severe childhood epilepsy can affect newborns, infants and children, manifesting in a range of seizure types that are often accompanied by developmental and cognitive delay, autism and movement disorders. 

These conditions, known as developmental and epileptic encephalopathies, are usually caused by genetic variants that can be found in more than 800 genes. Patients on the severe end of the spectrum often don’t respond to currently available anti-seizure medications and require long-term care and management. 

Each of these genetic variants are rare, but collectively developmental and epileptic encephalopathies occurs in 1 in 600 births. 

The Florey, with clinical and industry partners, is committed to making a difference in this space. There are still many questions to answer in this field of health and more treatment options are desperately needed.  

We’ll be joined by: 

Professor Chris Reid 

Head of the Epilepsy Mission and the Neurophysiology of Excitable Networks Laboratory at The Florey, Chris leads a team that investigates the molecular and cellular causes of epilepsy. He is well-known for his work in developing drug targets for developmental and epileptic encephalopathies. 

A/Prof Snezana Maljevic  

Snezana is a molecular neuroscientist and ion channel physiologist with expertise covering cell biology, electrophysiology, and molecular biology approaches, focusing on the functional studies of ion channels and other genes in epileptic disorders. Her research has increased our understanding of disease mechanisms and helped employ precision medicine approaches in treating epilepsy.   

Dr Katherine Howell 

Katherine is a paediatric neurologist and epileptologist at the Royal Children's Hospital, and a Clinician-Scientist Fellow and the Neuroscience Group Leader at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute. Her clinical and research work focuses on severe, early-life epilepsies. 

Stuart Place 

Stuart is a founder and volunteer director of SLC6A1 Kids. His youngest son, Will, was born with a rare and severe genetic epilepsy. Motivated to find a cure and make a difference, Stuart recently cycled 15,451km over 50 days to raise awareness for SLC6A1 and funds to develop a treatment. Stu has raised over AUD 1 million for The Florey.

Mel Anderson  

Mel is the founder of PURA Foundation, a charity raising awareness, supports research and provides education about the developmental and epileptic encephalopathy, PURA syndrome. In 2014, Mel’s daughter was the first Australian to be diagnosed with PURA syndrome and since then her passion and dedication to connect families and raise awareness have led her to The Florey.