History
In 1969, The Dysautonomia Treatment and Evaluation Center was established at New York University Medical Center with the specific mission of providing medical care to patients with Familial Dysautonomia (FD), a debilitating genetic disease that affects autonomic and sensory nerves.
The Center was supported, from the start, by the Dysautonomia Foundation (DF Inc), a charitable not-for-profit organization established in 1951 by a group of parents, just two years after FD was first described by Dr. Conrad Riley and Dr. Richard Day.
Since its opening, the Center has been directed by Dr. Felicia B. Axelrod.
Medical treatments instituted by the Center had a dramatic impact on the survival and quality of life for patients with FD. It was the only facility specialized in the care of FD patients in the US.
The Center centralized the care of these patients and served as a global scientific resource for patients and physicians. The Center also excelled in the study of other hereditary disorders affecting sensory and autonomic nerves.
In 2002, their educational outreach resulted in the signature into law of a bill recognizing FD as a developmental disability in New York State.
In 1985, The Autonomic Disorders Research and Treatment Program was established at the Department of Neurology of Mount Sinai School of Medicine as a comprehensive center committed to research, education and patient care. Several hundred patients with autonomic disorders were seen and treated every year.
A clinical and research fellowship program graduated 12 postdoctoral and clinical research fellows. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA), the National Organization of Rare Disorders (NORD) and the Dana Foundation, among others, funded research at the Center.
The seminal clinical trials of midodrine and droxidopa, the two main drugs used in the treatment of autonomic failure, were conducted at the Program. Investigators at the program reported the first complete neuropathological description of pure autonomic failure, a synucleinopathy related to Parkinson’s disease.
Research in collaboration with investigators at Vanderbilt University uncovered a vestibular sympathetic reflex in humans involved in blood pressure regulation.
