Meet our new professors
Professor Paul Matthews, Edmond and Lily Safra Chair in Translational Neuroscience and Therapeutics, Department of Medicine
This event is sold out. You can watch the lecture for free via our YouTube channel on Thursday 20 November from 18.00 – Visit our YouTube channel and click ‘subscribe’ to watch the lecture (external link).
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Abstract
Our aging population is confronted with a rising prevalence of neurodegenerative diseases. Their insidious onset, pervasive impact and chronic nature constitute a global medical, economic and social challenge with implications more profound than major pandemics of the past.
As scientists, we are responding in ways that are fundamentally shifting the paradigm for healthcare. A narrow focus on the brain is being replaced by a more holistic view of the genesis of late life brain disease in the context of the biological and social changes with aging.
At Imperial, we are placing a new emphasis on collaboration, a focus on the patient, a broader approach to treatment than ‘pills and potions’, a commitment to open, shared data and, above all, a sense of urgency to make a difference.
In my lecture, I will describe the path I took from laboratory-based science through industry to the new highly collaborative world of ‘big science’.
About the speaker
Professor Paul M Matthews is the Edmond and Lily Safra Chair in Translational Neuroscience and Therapeutics and Head of the Division of Brain Sciences at Imperial College London. He is Honorary Consultant Neurologist at Imperial College Healthcare Trust and Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals. He studied Chemistry and obtained a DPhil in Biochemistry from the University of Oxford, received his MD at Stanford University and trained at the Montreal Neurological Institute.
During his career he received a Medical Research Council (Canada) Clinician-Scientist Award and held an MRC Clinical Readership and then Professorship in Oxford before serving as Vice President in GlaxoSmithKline for pharmaceutical research and development.
Professor Matthews’ current research includes novel imaging methods for in vivo molecular neuropathology, mechanisms linking inflammation and neurodegeneration in Multiple Sclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease, and better management of patients and their diseases.