Dr. Ann Agnes Mathew completed her MBBS from St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore and passed out as the best outgoing student in 2000. She went on do her Paediatric training in Scotland, United Kingdom. She completed her MRCPCH and acquired training in Paediatrics and tertiary neonatology from the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Glasgow (Yorkhill) and Tayside University Hospitals, Dundee, with a rotation that included neonates, surgical neonates (in one of the 4 ECMO units in the UK), Paediatric cardiology and Acute Paediatrics. This included a total of about 4.5 years of Paediatric training including 2.5 years of tertiary neonates and another year of level 2 neonates with DGH postings.

She then commenced her Paediatric neurology training at Great Ormond Street Hospital, one of the oldest and best Children’s Hospitals in the world. This included a total of 4 years of training with 6 months as an Epilepsy fellow at Kings College Hospital, London and Evelina Children’s Hospital, a part of the prestigious Guys and St. Thomas’s Hospital of London. During this time, she was involved with epilepsy research, Epilepsy genetics, Vagal Nerve Stimulation clinics, Ketogenic Diet clinics and Epilepsy surgeries.

Her time at Great Ormond Street saw her as a fellow in Paediatric Neurology, then as a fellow in Neurovascular disorders and later in Paediatric Neuromuscular Disorders which would then go on to be her area of special interest. Neuromuscular disorders, became close to her heart and she went on to train at the world famous Dubowitz Neuromuscular Centre under Prof. Francesco Muntoni for 2 years. The Dubowitz Neuromuscular Centre is one of the premier centers for the research and treatment of childhood Muscular Dystrophies, congenital myopathies, congenital Myasthenias and other neuromuscular disorders. It is part of the National Commissioning Service for rare genetic disorders in the field in the UK, receiving patients and trainees from all over the world. It is one of the centers were exon skipping trials for Duchenne muscular dystrophy was first held almost a decade ago, among many other clinical trials.

She went on to establish the Paediatric neurology department and child development center at Rainbow Children’s Hospitals in Bangalore and establish the first ever Paediatric Neuromuscular Service in the country at Bangalore Baptist Hospital in conjunction with the rare disease parent support group ORDI (Organization For Rare Diseases India). The neuromuscular service established at BBH was one of the first4 national centers in the country, where the revolutionary medicine Nusinersen (SPINRAZA) has been initiated for the devastating disease Spinal Muscular Atrophy, which affects infants causing early death.Currently we have given all the approved therapies including Risdiplam as well as ZOLGENSMA, the gene therapy for SMA.