Paulo Fontoura joined Roche in 2008 as a Translational Medicine Leader and became Head of Translational Medicine in 2010, responsible for the early development stages of new medicines for neurological and psychiatric diseases, including Multiple Sclerosis, Alzheimer disease, depression, schizophrenia, autism and Down syndrome. More recently, his group has initiated work in Ophthalmology and pioneered projects in genetically caused rare diseases such as Spinal Muscular Atrophy and Huntington’s disease. In 2015, Paulo became Global Head of Clinical Development Neuroscience, where he is in charge of late stage clinical development, which include projects in Multiple Sclerosis, Alzheimer disease and Spinal Muscular Atrophy. Before joining Roche, Paulo worked as a neurologist and Assistant Professor of Immunology at the New University of Lisbon, where he created a MS clinic actively involved in clinical trials and applied neuroimmunology research, led several collaborations with local institutions such as the Gulbenkian Foundation, and consulted with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Paulo received his MD and PhD in Neuroimmunology from the New University of Lisbon, and performed his neurology residency at the Egas Moniz Hospital in Lisbon. He did a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University where he made significant contributions to research on antigen-specific therapies such as altered peptide ligands and DNA vaccines for Multiple Sclerosis and spinal cord injury, resulting in several publications in top journals such as Immunity, Science, Nature Biotechnology, Journal of Immunology and PNAS. He is a Fulbright Fellow, and has received several awards throughout his career, including a European Charcot Foundation Young Investigator Award, Salud 2000 Foundation, Gulbenkian Investigator and Christopher Reeve Foundation Awards.