Dr Eilís Dowd has been working in the field of pre-clinical Parkinson’s research for almost 20 years, and her research focuses on understanding the cause of the condition and on developing novel pharmacological, cell, gene and biomaterial therapies for it. She received her PhD from the University of Edinburgh (UK), after which she completed post-doctoral research at the University of Cambridge (UK), McGill University (Canada) and Cardiff University (UK). Dr Dowd is currently president of Neuroscience Ireland, Ireland’s official neuroscience society, and immediate past president of NECTAR, the Network for European CNS Transplantation and Restoration. She sits on the governing councils of both the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) and the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO). She is also associate editor of Neuronal Signaling, section editor of the European Journal of Neuroscience, and editorial board member at Scientific Reports.