Dr. Marie-Christine Chartier-Harlin holds a masters in biological health science and a PhD from the Université de Lille in Lille, France. She pursued post-doctoral research as a research fellow at Saint Mary's Hospital Medical School in London, United Kingdom. Thereafter, she returned to Lille as an Inserm research scientist (1993) working on the genetics of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD). In 2001, she became Inserm research director, pursuing work on AD and PD, and, since 2005, she has devoted her attention to the studying the molecular mechanisms of PD. Dr. Chartier-Harlin is head of the Early Stages of PD team at the Jean-Pierre Aubert Research Center (JPARC) in Lille, France, focusing on the study of molecular events in early stages of PD. This research combines clinical study, genetic epidemiology (public health research) and molecular genetics approaches, including gene expression studies in biosamples as well as PD pre-clinical models and investigation of potential biomarkers.