Jan Kristoper P. de Guzman, MD

Jan Kristoper P. de Guzman, MD, earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Biology, cum laude, from the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, Philippines in 2007 and finished Doctor of Medicine in the same institution in 2011. He did his medical internship program at the University of Santo Tomas Hospital in Manila in 2012 and passed the Philippine Physician Licensure board examinations. He completed residency training in Neurology as associate chief resident at Jose R. Reyes Memorial Medical Center in Manila in 2015. 

In 2016-2017, Dr. de Guzman trained as a Research Fellow in Neurology’s Movement Disorders Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital under Dr. Nutan Sharma. Here, he contributed to the research activities of the Collaborative Center for X-Linked Dystonia-Parkinsonism (CCXDP) as a research coordinator for the Dystonia Partners Research Bank and as an investigator for one project on co-morbidities of cervical dystonia and another project pinpointing the speech and swallow impairments of people with X-linked Dystonia-Parkinsonism (XDP). As a research coordinator and investigator, he conducted rigorous clinical measurements that include neurological, psychological and specialized speech and swallow assessments of people with many forms of dystonia.

In addition to his research efforts, Dr. de Guzman gained clinical exposure to the wide spectrum of movement disorders from the different types of dystonia, Parkinson’s disease, ataxia, Huntington’s disease, and functional neurologic movement disorders. He considers his research experience and observations in the clinic as a key to developing requisite expertise to aid the understanding of the pathogenesis and knowing the proper management of these types of movement disorders.

Dr. de Guzman returned to Manila in 2017 where he continues to pursue his interest in swallowing and speech impairments among patients with XDP, since malnutrition and aspiration pneumonia are major contributors to the morbidity and mortality of patients. Because fully understanding the unique phenomenology of this rare, neurodegenerative illness is essential to the identification of treatment targets and outcomes, he will also be involved in a major effort to study the natural history of the disease. He believes that these are major steps in advancing our knowledge for discovering the cure of this disease.