Professor William Wisden, FRS
Centre Director
Professor Wisden, MA, PhD, FMedSci, FRS, is Chair in Molecular Neuroscience in the Department of Life Sciences, 51³Ô¹ÏÍø, and the Director of the UK DRI Centre at 51³Ô¹ÏÍø. He is interested in three major problems in neuroscience:
- Why do we sleep and how is sleep initiated and maintained?
- What are the molecular and neuronal mechanisms underlying the loss of consciousness induced by general anaesthetics?
- What is the molecular basis of neuropathic pain?
He uses a wide variety of techniques and model systems to investigate these problems, including confocal microscopy, real-time PCR, proteomic analysis with mass spectrometry and structural biology.
Dr Samuel Barnes
UK DRI Group Leader, Deputy Centre Director
The role of micro-circuit homeostasis in ageing and early-stage AD
Dr Barnes investigates why the aged brain is vulnerable to neurodegeneration in order to identify strategies that may alleviate this susceptibility.
His group focuses on homeostatic neural plasticity processes which are thought to be critical for healthy network function. The group uses a combination of voltage and calcium imaging, bioelectronics and electrophysiology to determine the efficiency and mechanisms of homeostatic plasticity processes in both the aged brain and the early stages of neurodegeneration.
Dr Marco Brancaccio
UK DRI Group Leader
Mechanisms of circadian dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease
Dr Brancaccio investigates the molecular, cellular and circuit mechanisms underlying circadian function in health and disease.
His group focuses on understanding the mechanisms driving circadian misregulation in the early stages of dementia. His laboratory uses a wide range of techniques including live imaging and in vivo gene therapy to study and harness circadian brain function with the aim of delaying disease onset and progression.
Professor Paul Elliott, FRS
UK DRI Group Leader
Professor Paul Elliott, MBBS, PhD, FMedSci, FRS, trained in clinical medicine and epidemiology as a Wellcome Trust Clinical Fellow at St Mary's Hospital London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He studied for his PhD in Epidemiology on the INTERSALT Study under the mentorship of Professor Geoffrey Rose. He remained at the London School working as a lecturer, and subsequently as senior lecturer and reader in epidemiology before being appointed as Head of the Environmental Epidemiology Unit at LSHTM 1990. In 1995 he was appointed to the Chair in Epidemiology and Public Health Medicine at 51³Ô¹ÏÍø.
Dr Nir Grossman
UK DRI Group Leader
Novel bioelectronics stimulation technologies
Dr Grossman develops neuromodulatory interventions for brain disorders by pioneering new tools and principles to impact the disease pathology via direct modulation of the underlying aberrant neural activity.
His research drives innovation through rigorous scientific exploration of common biophysical principles and rules underpinning the neural processing of electromagnetic stimulation, using natural bridges between advanced computational neuroscience and cutting-edge experiments, ranging from a single neuron cell to human behaviour.
Professor Paul Matthews
UK DRI Group Leader
Exploring glial-neuronal interactions at the transition from brain vulnerability to pathology
Paul M. Matthews, OBE, DPhil, FRCP, FMedSci is an Edmond and Lily Safra Professor of Translational Neuroscience and Therapeutics, 51³Ô¹ÏÍø. Since 2009, he has been on the Steering Committee of UK Biobank and chairs the Imaging Enhancement Working Group, which has supported UK Biobank for creating the world’s largest population research imaging resource.
Previously, Matthews spent almost nine years as a Vice President in GlaxoSmithKline, holding a variety of senior portfolios, including those for the GSK Clinical Imaging Centre and the later Global Imaging Group. He jointly founded and was the first Director of Oxford FMRIB Centre (1995-2005). He is a Fellow by Special Election of St Edmund Hall, Oxford, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and a Fellow of the Academea Europea. He was awarded an OBE in 2008 for services to Neuroscience.
Paul became Director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, which was founded as a Joint Venture between 51³Ô¹ÏÍø College, nine other UK universities, the UKRI Engineering and Physical Sciences Council and the Science and Technology Facilities Council. His research addresses mechanisms of failure of glial-neuronal homeostatic mechanisms and selective neuronal vulnerability in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease and in progressive multiple sclerosis. He always is pleased to hear from interested prospective students, scientists or others who share a common interest in helping science improve the lives of people with dementia and their families.
Dr Alexi Nott
UK DRI Group Leader
The role of genetic variation in brain ageing and disease
Alexi completed his PhD at University College London investigating the function of epigenetic regulators during brain development. During his postdoctoral fellowship at MIT he investigated the role of epigenetics in postnatal development and autism-related behaviors. His research at the University of California, San Diego examined epigenetic mechanisms underlying age-related brain disorders and he identified microglia as associated with the genetic risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
His research utilizes nuclei isolation methods and genome-wide sequencing approaches to examine the epigenome of brain cell types using patient-derived archived tissue. Functional interrogation of disease-associated gene regulatory regions will employ CRISPR DNA-editing technology of pluripotent stem cells derived into brain cell types. Using a combination of these approaches, Alexi will examine the epigenome of the human brain to understand how genetic variation contributes to age-related brain disorders.
Dr Cynthia Sandor
UK DRI Group Leader
Digital Biomarkers in Parkinson's Disease
Dr Sandor is an Edmond J. Safra Lecturer in Parkinson’s Disease. She also holds a .
Dr Sandor's research interest is in identifying accessible and early biomarkers, to aid in the detection of individuals living with Parkinson's within the general population. Working with various data types, including omics, digital, and neuroimaging, as well as multiple clinical and biobank datasets, her team develops statistical and machine learning approaches to predict who is at risk for Parkinson's disease. Her research aims to facilitate earlier intervention and deepen understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying Parkinson's disease, potentially paving the way for the development of neuroprotective treatments.
Dr Nathan Skene
UK DRI Group Leader
Seeking drug targets for neurodegenerative disease with genome-wide directional evidence
Nathan Skene completed his undergraduate degree in Artificial Intelligence and Cybernetics at the University of Reading, followed by an MPhil in Computational Biology at Cambridge. His PhD was at the Sanger Institute working with Professor Seth Grant on the Genes2Cognition programme. During his PhD he worked on analysing the transcriptomic changes seen in mice carrying a wide range of synaptic mutations.
He did his postdoc in the lab of Jens Hjerling-Leffler at the Karolinska Institutet, where he developed a series of method which made it possible to identify cell types underlying complex diseases using GWAS data. Skene joined 51³Ô¹ÏÍø in 2019 as an Edmond and Lily Safra Research Fellow. His interests lie in using human genetics to gain insight into the neurobiology of brain disorders and cognitive traits.
