Some Thoughts on the Future of Stroke

David Blacker speaks to Simi Thankaraj, Assistant Commissioning Editor David Blacker was born in Bunbury, Western Australia, and studied medicine at the University of Western Australia (Perth, Australia), graduating in 1991. He undertook physician and neurology specialist training in Perth. He developed an interest in acute stroke therapies early in his career, and was involved with cases treated with intra-arterial techniques in the mid-1990s. Like many young Australian neurologists, he then undertook 2 years of fellowship training at the Mayo Clinic (MN, USA). There, Blacker was mentored by Professors Bob Brown and Eelco Wijdicks, and further developed interests in stroke and acute hospital-based neurology. His return to Australia in 2003 coincided with the approval of tissue plasminogen activator as a stroke therapy. He helped establish the acute stroke team at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital (Perth, Australia), and has continued to work on the development of stroke services locally, and across the geoprahically enormous state of Western Australia ever since. In his role as a Clinical Associate Professor of Neurology at the University of Western Australia, he is actively involved in teaching, and has a wide range of research interests mainly in acute stroke, but also in neurorehabilitation. In this interview, he shares some thoughts on the future of stroke treatment and research.