Thomas Bird, professor of neurology, medicine, and psychiatry, will give the Science in Medicine lecture at noon, Thursday, Feb. 19, in Hogness Auditorium, A-420 in the UW Health Sciences Center.

Bird is the director of the Neurogenetics Clinic in the UW's Center on Human Development and Disability. The clinic focuses on patients with inherited neurodegenerative diseases, helping identify the genetic causes of those conditions and counseling patients and their families through progression of the diseases.

Bird will discuss the cases of five people who have been treated at the clinic since he helped found it in 1974. The lecture is titled Clinical Neurogenetics: A 30-Year Adventure with Genes, Brains and Nerves. The presentation will look at patients who suffered from neuropathy, dementia, and cerebellar ataxia.

The event is free and open to all faculty, staff, and students, with no registration required. It will be simultaneously televised at Harborview Medical Center, Room 121 of the Research and Training Building. For more information, contact Vee White at 206-543-8319, veewhite@u.washington.edu

Bird also serves as an investigator in the Geriatrics Research Center at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System, director of the Huntington's Disease Center of Excellence at the UW, and chief of the Division of Neurogenetics in the School of Medicine's Department of Neurology.