Matthew Harms, MD

Matthew Harms, MD is an Associate Professor of Neurology at Columbia University in New York City. Dr. Harms received his A.B. in Biology summa cum laude from Harvard University and his medical doctorate from the University of California San Francisco. He completed clinical fellowships in Neurophysiology and Neuromuscular Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, where he post-doctoral studies focused on the genetics of motor neuron diseases in general and specifically on ALS.

Since 2015, Dr. Harms’ has been the Director of the Precision Medicine Initiative in ALS at Columbia University’s Institute for Genomic Medicine. With his team in the Motor Neuron Center and in the Eleanor and Lou Gehrig ALS Center, his lab focuses on gene identification for ALS and the use of novel bioinformatic approaches. His efforts have contributed to the identification of five ALS genes and he currently directs the “Genomic Translation for ALS Care” study, North America’s largest prospective study linking genomics to environmental exposures and outcomes. He is the co-chair of the Familial ALS/FTD Committee of NEALS and has served as a site PI for several NEALS clinical trials.

Dr. Harms is an attending in the Eleanor and Lou Gehrig ALS Center at Columbia and also sees adult and pediatric patients in the Muscular Dystrophy/SMA Center.