Sometimes starting a new job can feel like coming home. One new addition to the USC research community, Dr. Leo Bonilha, an M.D.-Ph.D. neurologist, is enjoying just such a homecoming. As of September 1, 2023, Dr. Bonilha assumed the role of Clinical Director for the university’s new Rural Brain Health Network and as the Senior Associate Dean for Research at the School of Medicine in Columbia. Though Dr. Bonilha hails from the nation of Brazil and completed his postdoctoral work at the University of Nottingham in England, he has established deep roots at USC.
Dr. Bonilha started his professional career here at the Palmetto State’s flagship university more than 15 years ago, working as a Research Assistant Professor in collaboration with Chris Rorden, who recruited him from his postdoc position in England. In 2012, Dr. Bonilha joined the faculty at the Medical University of South Carolina, progressing through the ranks there until 2021 when he moved on to Emory University, where he served as Director of the Emory Epilepsy Center.
But throughout this time, Dr. Bonilha continued to work closely with USC research collaborators. “I have maintained very strong collaborations with USC, with research,” Bonilha said. “I have worked with Julius Fridriksson for all this time, with Chris Rorden for all this time. And, many of our research projects have been combined. So that makes it feel like coming back to a place I know very well.”
Dr. Bonilha’s USC research collaborations have centered around the Center for the Study of Aphasia, or C-STAR, in the Arnold School of Public Health. His research with that group has focused on factors that affect the outcomes of therapy for aphasia, a language disorder caused by damage to the speech and language areas of the brain, often as a result of stroke.
This experience, combined with his clinical and research work at MUSC and Emory, have prepared Dr. Bonilha well for his new role as the Clinical Director of the South Carolina Rural Brain Health Network, a new system of rural clinics that will provide differential diagnostic assessments and care support for rural SC patients experiencing cognitive issues, including vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. This network will be anchored in Columbia by the state-of-the-art Brain Health Center at the new USC health sciences campus. Through this hub-and-spoke model, the South Carolina Rural Brain Health Network will support primary care providers, caregivers and patients experiencing cognitive problems in rural areas of the Palmetto State.
Making this support available in rural areas is so important because that’s where the vast majority of people are, and particularly the vast majority of people who do not have access, or timely access, to care.
— Dr. Leo Bonilha, Clinical Director, SC Rural Brain Health Network
“Brain health and cognitive problems are very common. Other things as well—seizures, stroke, etc. And because of the fact that you don’t have specialists close by, and the primary care doctors are not very numerous, and they’re busy, it’s absolutely understandable that they need more support to take care of those conditions,” Dr. Bonilha said. “So the goal of the network is to bridge this gap, particularly with an emphasis on dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, but also with neurological care in general. Making this support available in rural areas is so important because that’s where the vast majority of people are, and particularly the vast majority of people who do not have access, or timely access, to care.”
The South Carolina Rural Brain Health Network aims to launch its first two clinics in the state this fall, so patients, caregivers and rural physicians will soon begin to feel some relief. As Dr. Bonilha puts it, the network will offer “peace of mind for patients and caregivers that they know this patient is plugged into a supportive network that’s right in their community, with the support of the hub.”
USC research runs in the family
Leo is not the only Bonilha family member with connections to USC. His wife, Heather Shaw Bonilha, is a USC alumna who earned a Ph.D. in Speech Language Pathology in 2005, completed a postdoctoral fellowship here, and previously served as a Research Assistant Professor in the Arnold School of Public Health’s Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders. A health sciences researcher in her own right, Heather Bonilha has rejoined the department as Graduate Director for the Communications Sciences and Disorders Ph.D. program.
13 September 2023