简介
I lead a growing team of outstanding researchers at the College of Medicine and Health, recruiting high-calibre academics and significantly expanding educational programmes and student numbers. During 2017/18, the College reached the Leiden ranking’s world top 30 for the quality of its Health and Biomedical Science research, attracted a £10 million donation from the Dennis and Mireille Gillings Foundation, launched a new Academy of Nursing and received permission to expand Medicine student numbers.
As a world-renowned researcher I have led or co-authored well over 500 research papers. My main research specialisms are drug discovery, dementia prevention and improving care for people with dementia in residential homes. I am an expert in Lewy Body Dementia and Parkinson ’s disease Dementia, and an advocate of better prescribing and treatment pathways to improve outcomes for individuals.
A Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences since 2015, I represented King’s College London on the TRC-D initiative and AHSC London, and was Director of the Maudsley BRU-D.
Key clinical trials include DART AD (PLOS Medicine 2008, Lancet Neurology 2009), highlighting the major long term impact of antipsychotics on mortality in AD, MEADOWS RCTs of memantine in Down syndrome (Lancet 2012), memantine for Parkinson’s disease dementia (Lancet Neurology 2009), sertraline and mirtazapine for depression in AD (Lancet 2012), analgesia for agitation in AD (BMJ 2011) and pimavanserin for psychosis in Parkinson’s disease (Lancet 2015).
Other key trials include the largest RCT of on-line brain training (Nature 2010, JMDA 2015), DOMINO RCT of donepezil and memantine for moderately severe AD (NEJM 2012) and FITS and WHELD RCTS of experimental non-pharmacological interventions for people with dementia in care homes (BMJ 2006, Am J Psychiatry 2016). Translational biology papers have focussed on diagnosis, neurochemical associations of neuropsychiatric symptoms, impact of pharmacological therapies on disease biology and endogenous neurogenesis. Research grants include NIHR/HTA, MRC, Wellcome Trust, European Union, commercial (including Acadia, Lundbeck, Takeda, Novo Nordisk) and charity funding (total >£70m). I am the lead European investigator for the Lundbeck STARbeam study and a co-investigator for the ARUK drug discovery programme. I sit on advisory boards of many pharmaceutical companies, and am well placed to develop further collaborations. Influential systematic reviews include meta-analyses of antipsychotics and other treatments for psychosis and agitation, a review of pain in dementia and a pivotal Delphi consensus of drug repositioning for AD (Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2006, Nature Reviews Neurology 2009, 2012a, 2012b).
This work benefited patients through a vital contribution to reducing antipsychotic use and improving analgesia in dementia, creating, evaluating and implementing evidence-based non-pharmacological interventions for people with dementia in care homes and developing evidence-based online brain training to help maintain cognitive health. Ongoing work is expected to lead to the licensing of a novel antipsychotic from a new drug class for the treatment of psychosis in neurodegenerative diseases. As Alzheimer’s Society Director of Research (2003-13) I have extensive experience of promoting public understanding of science and led an innovative PPI programme. I have acted as advisor on dementia to the UK and international governments and the MHRA on anti-dementia and antipsychotic drugs
