“The attribution of this award to a work on Paramyloidosis is a fair recognition of a success of Portuguese Medicine, in which I was fortunate to take part, and which involved numerous renowned researchers over dozens of years.”
Teresa Coelho is a Neurologist and Neurophysiologist at CHUPorto, Portugal where she is the Head of Neurophysiology Department and the Head of Andrade’s Center, an outpatient multidisciplinary clinic that is a Reference Centre for inherited ATTR amyloidosis. She is also the coordinator of Neuromuscular Diseases Clinic. She has a PhD degree with a thesis on the development of disease modifying treatments in ATTR amyloidosis.
The CHUPorto, previously Hospital de Santo António, was the place where Andrade conducted the investigation that led to the description of the first cases of ATTR amyloidosis, published in Brain in 1952 and is nowadays the place in the world where the largest number of patients is diagnosed and followed.
Teresa Coelho is dedicated to this condition for more than 30 years and has participated actively in the clinical development of the three new drugs, Tafamidis, Patisiranand Inotersen, recently approved in Europe for the treatment of this condition. She had the rare and fortunate opportunity to participate in the transformation of a progressive, disabling, and fatal condition into a treatable, chronic disease.