Now, Joshua Burns is planning to travel to the United States to research our most common genetic nerve disease, Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.

Dr Burns, a senior researcher at the Institute for Neuromuscular Research at The Children's Hospital at Westmead, is heading to Detroit after being awarded a three-month Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholarship to research CMT, which causes progressive muscle weakness, painful foot deformities and walking difficulty.

The Fulbright scholarship will enable Dr Burns to initiate long-term collaboration between world leaders in many aspects of clinical and laboratory CMT research.

The Fulbright program is the largest educational scholarship of its kind and Dr Burns is one of 22 Australians to be recognised as a Fulbright Scholar in 2009.

``We are dedicated to improving diagnosis, evaluating state-of-the-art therapies and establishing an internationally recognised research program to achieve coordinated excellence of care throughout Australia and the US,'' Dr Burns said.

Last week, he returned to The Children's Hospital at Westmead after completing a 10-day cycling tour of Sydney to Melbourne.

The tour raised nearly $1million for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a crippling disease affecting around 10,000 Australian boys.

In the middle of the ride, he flew to Hobart to accept the scholarship and then returned to complete the tour.

``It was gruelling; there was rain and hail and strong headwinds, a few falls, 38 flat tyres and broken chains,'' Dr Burns said.

``I don't think I'll be getting on a bike for a while now.''