ProfessorJohn Prineas

AO MBBS MD FRCP FRCP(Edin

Professor Prineas trained in internal medicine at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RPAH), Sydney, and the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, UK , and in neurology at the National Hospitals for Nervous Diseases (Maida Vale) London, and the London Hospital. Senior academics at Maida Vale and the London included Sir Charles Symonds, Lord Russel Brain, and Dr John Marshall, and the neuropathologists Professor WH McMenemy and Dr. RO Barnard.

At Maida Vale, Dr PK Thomas, working in the electron microscope unit, demonstrated in the 1960s the value, in the diagnosis of peripheral nerve diseases, of tissue fixed and embedded in epoxy resins for light and electron microscopy. It was here that Professor Prineas began his own studies of demyelinating peripheral neuropathies and multiple sclerosis.

In 1965 he was appointed First Assistant, University Department of Neurology, University of Newcastle upon Tyne and the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne, an MS research center directed by Professor Henry Miller.

In 1967 he worked as a Research Fellow, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, in the electron microscope laboratories of the Departments of Neurology and Neuropathology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, supervised by R. Terry.

He returned to Sydney University in 1969 as Welcome Australian Senior Research Fellow in Clinical Sciences, later Senior Lecturer, in the Department of Medicine, and as one of the six foundation members of a new Department of Neurology directed by the then Associate Professor James Mcleod at RPAH.

With Professor Mcleod and Dr J Walsh he helped create a state reference laboratory for peripheral nerve and muscle histopathology, the first such specialized neuromuscular pathology unit in Australia. The laboratory, named the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Neurology Laboratory, established as a collaboration between the University and RPAH, provided not only a diagnostic service but also a research facility for PhD and other higher degree students. The many original research studies reported at this time by the group included the first detailed accounts of the pathology and fine structural pathology (electron microscopy) of two common polyneuropathies, the Guillain Barre syndrome and chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP).

In 1974 he returned to the US to help establish with Professors Stuart Cook and Peter Dowling, neurologists from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, new departments of neurology at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, the University Hospital, Newark, and the East Orange Veterans Administration Hospital. During the 26 years at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, and as a Visiting Professor, Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, his research involved chiefly the fine structural pathology and paraffin immunohistology of multiple sclerosis and related experimental models of the disease.

In 2000, he was appointed Professor (Honorary), Central Clinical School, University of Sydney, with an office and laboratory facilities in the Blackburn Building, facilities that included storage of electron micrographs and a large MS tissue bank in the RPAH Neurology Laboratory. Neurology residents tutored included Drs M Barnett (PhD student), JD Parratt, and AP Henderson.

In 2009 he received the Charcot Award for Multiple Sclerosis Research from The International Federation of MS Societies (the only other Australian recipient of the award, a Mayo Clinic researcher Professor VA Lennon), and in 2011 Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) and Degree of Doctor of Medicine (honoris causa) for Contributions to Neurological Science. Recent (2022 and 2023) international rating agency reviews of the research standing of the university, as cited by the university, rank Professor Prineas amongst the top 2 percent of academic neurologists in Australia and internationally.