Dr. Paula Clemens is a clinician and scientist at the University of Pittsburgh.  In addition to her university-based practice and research efforts, she directs the in-patient and out-patient neurology clinical teaching service at the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System. She has particular expertise in the care of adults with neuromuscular diseases such as Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophy, myotonic dystrophy and spinal muscular atrophy. She has further expertise in the management and enzyme replacement treatment of patients with late-onset Pompe disease. In addition to providing clinical care for patients with a broad array of neurological problems, she pursues both clinical and basic translational research focused on the development of treatments for genetic muscle diseases. In this context, she has trained PhD candidates, post-doctoral fellows and medical students. She is the Medical Director of an academic clinical trial network for muscle disease research that has study sites worldwide, the Cooperative International Neuromuscular Research Group (CINRG). She leads several multi-center studies focused on the natural history of and drug development for genetic muscle diseases. By partnering with advocacy and research groups globally, Dr. Clemens and colleagues have contributed to the development of outcome measures with utility for all muscle disease therapeutics research.