Following undergraduate studies at Princeton University, Dr. Charlotte Sumner received her medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. She then completed an internal medicine internship and neurology residency at the University of California San Francisco, after which she returned to the east coast for a neuromuscular fellowship at The Johns Hopkins University and a neurogenetics fellowship in the Neurogenetics Branch at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. She joined the neurology faculty at Hopkins in 2006. 

Now an Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Sumner cares for patients with a variety of neuromuscular disorders. Her practice is notable for a particular focus on individuals with inherited neuromuscular diseases of peripheral nerves and motor neurons, including spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease.

Dr. Sumner’s research similarly focuses on inherited motor neuron and peripheral nerve diseases. Specifically, she studies the molecular pathogenesis of different forms of SMA with particular attention to therapeutics development for these disorders. Recent work has explored the efficacy of histone deacetylase inhibitors in the treatment of SMA.

Dr. Sumner currently sees patients at The Johns Hopkins Outpatient Center in Baltimore on Mondays.

Certifications:

• American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology

Research:  For further details regarding Dr. Sumner's laboratory and research interests, please visit http://neuroscience.jhu.edu/CharlotteSumner.php