After training at the University of Cambridge (UK) and spending much of his career in France, Chris Henderson moved in 2005 to Columbia University in New York, where he co-founded the Center for Motor Neuron Biology and Disease, an initiative in translational neuroscience that created a continuum from research on motor neurons through to clinical research on the motor neuron diseases ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) and SMA (spinal muscular atrophy). He was also director of the Columbia Stem Cell Initiative, a group of 120 laboratories across the university using stem cells to better understand or treat human disease. While still at Columbia, he became (and remains) director of Target ALS, a privately-funded foundation that has stimulated industry investment in ALS research by supporting cutting-edge translational research and nationwide core facilities. In 2014, Trophos - a French biotech of which he was an academic founder - announced positive clinical trial data in patients with SMA and was acquired by Roche. This provided major motivation to become more actively engaged in the biotech world and in October 2014, Henderson moved to Biogen (Cambridge, MA) to lead the neuroscience research program. As Vice President of Neurodegeneration & Repair, he works with a team of clinicians and scientists to take programs on Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, Parkinson’s disease, ataxias, ALS, SMA and multiple sclerosis from early research to clinical proof of concept.