Vanessa Hinson, M.D., Ph.D., is associate professor of neurology and director of the Movement Disorders Program at MUSC. She earned her medical and doctoral degrees from the University of Hamburg School of Medicine in Hamburg, Germany. After completing a research fellowship at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, she trained in neurology in Muenster, Germany. She completed her residency at MUSC where she also served as chief resident. Following fellowship training in movement disorders at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago, she joined MUSC's faculty. Dr. Hinson's special interests include the diagnosis and treatment of dystonia, Botulinum Toxin injections, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease and other movement disorders.

Vicky Salak, FNP, MSN, is the associate director of program research and a family nurse practitioner. She received her master's degree from the Medical University of South Carolina in 1998. She provides follow-up care for patients diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, including medication management and patient/caregiver education. Her other responsibilities include managing the surgical program for deep brain stimulation surgery for Parkinson's patients and acting as clinical research coordinator for a PD project.

Jennifer Zimmerman, RN, is a clinical research coordinator with the Movement Disorders Program at MUSC. She manages the investigation of new drug treatments for movement disorder patients and other related clinical research projects involving our patient volunteers.

Istvan Takacs, M.D., began his neurosurgical career at the Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden in 1989. He has completed fellowships at the University of Toronto and at the University of Arizona. Since 2001 he has directed the functional and stereotactic neurosurgery program at MUSC. His practice focuses on movement disorders, epilepsy, and pain. Dr. Takacs has extensive experience in deep brain stimulation, Gamma-knife and LINAC radiosurgery, frameless neurosurgical navigation systems, and other minimally invasive techniques. His research interests include functional imaging of the brain, computer guided surgical techniques, and motion capture technology in outcome evaluation.