Dr. Babu is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and serves as neuromuscular faculty. She provides clinical care for people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and other motor neuron diseases at the multidisciplinary ALS clinic at the Healey Center for ALS. In addition, she provides clinical care for people with neuromuscular disorders at the Mass General Neuromuscular Division.
Dr. Babu completed her Neurology training at the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio and two fellowships in Neuromuscular diseases and Neurodegenerative disorders at Harvard Medical School. She has completed a 2-year competitive Clinical and Translational Research Academy program at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Babu serves as a physician investigator in ALS. She has a special interest in developing disease modifying treatments and clinical trial biomarker readouts for people with ALS and motor neuron diseases. Her clinical research work is primarily aimed at improving ALS patient care and survival outcomes. Her research work focuses on characterizing and quantifying neuroinflammation and other disease mechanism markers of disease progression in individuals with various forms of ALS, using advanced neuroimaging techniques, such as MRI and PET imaging along with markers in blood and spinal fluid and clinical outcome measures. She has led as the overall Principal Investigator for two multi-site clinical research studies using novel PET imaging readouts. She leads several Phase 1, 2 and 3 clinical trials evaluating novel therapeutics for sporadic and familial ALS as the site Principal Investigator for Mass General.
Dr. Babu collaborates with ALS researchers across the world and has published several high impact scientific publications. She co-chairs the NEALS Consortium imaging subcommittee, an international organization for ALS researchers. Her research is funded by prestigious awards from American Academy of Neurology, ALS Association and Muscular Dystrophy Association.