Rami Burstein, Ph.D.

John Hedley-Whyte Professor of Anesthesia and Neuroscience, Harvard Medical School 

Vice Chairman of Neuroscience, Department of Anesthesia, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Dr. Rami Burstein will be giving the keynote lecture titled: “Individualizing the treatment of migraine based on patients’ symptoms and current understanding of migraine pathophysiology”.

Dr. Burstein is the President of the International Headache Society – a medical society committed to the advancement of headache science, education, and management, and to promote headache awareness worldwide; the Founder of Global Migraine Aid - A US Charity whose mission is to improve the lives of people with migraine in underserved communities around the world; and the inventor and co-founder of Allay Lamp - a startup company that manufactures lamps that emit a narrow-band of green light for people suffering migraine, anxiety and difficulty with sleep.

Previously, he was a member of the Board of Directors of both the American and International Headache Societies and an appointed member of the Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee (consisting of members of the NIH, FDA, CDC Department of Health and Human Services) which was created by as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to enhance pain research efforts and advance fundamental understanding of pain and improving pain-related treatment strategies in the US. 

Throughout the years, he received numerous awards. These include the prestigious Javits Neuroscience Merit Award (NINDS), the Harold Wolff Awards (American Headache Society), the Cephalalgia Award (International Headache Society), the Seymour Diamond award (National Headache Foundation), the Alan Edwards Center for Research on Pain Award (McGill University), and the 44th John J. Bonica Lectureship Award, and the Migraine Trust award.

Among Professor Burstein’s accomplishments are the discoveries of the spinohypothalamic tract, the roles peripheral and central sensitization play in migraine pathophysiology and treatment, the mechanisms of action of several anti-migraine drugs, the neurobiology of photophobia, involvement of meningeal immune/inflammatory cells in headache, and the glymphatic system role in altering the migraine brain.

Patricia Perez-Bonilla, Ph.D.

Senior Scientist, Pfizer

Dr. Perez-Bonilla earned a BS in Molecular Biology from the University of Puerto Rico - Rio Piedras campus followed by a PhD in Neuroscience and Pharmacology & Toxicology from Michigan State University and a postdoctoral fellowship at Pfizer. During her PhD, she used novel CRISPR mouse models to explore the role of neurotensin receptor-1 neurons in promoting weight loss without adverse cardiovascular effects. Her postdoctoral work centered on developing a novel heart failure mouse model and evaluating heart rate variability and chronotropic incompetence as early preclinical markers of disease. 

She is currently a Senior Scientist in the Animal Models and Imaging group at Pfizer and is focused on using and developing in vivo digital technologies to better understand behavior and disease endpoints in mouse models of obesity, kidney disease, heart failure, and more recently, neurodegeneration. 

To date, she has authored 9 peer reviewed papers, has presented her work at multiple national and international conferences, and has mentored over 15 junior scientists.