Chair in Neurology, Neuroepidemiology and Ageing

Summary

Professor Middleton holds the chair of Neurology within the Ageing Epidemiology (AGE) Research Unit at the School of Public Health. He is, also, Honorary Consultant with the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust Hospitals.  He trained in Medicine and completed his Neurology training at the Louis Pasteur University Hospital in Strasbourg and obtained a Medical Doctorate Degree and the French National Board in Neurology. He was then appointed Clinical Fellow of the Presbyterian Hospital and Visiting Assistant Professor, Neurological Institute of New York,  Columbia University.  Following the award to him of a US-AID grant >$16M, he founded and became first Chairman of the Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics (1990-1999). His initial neurogenetics research in Cyprus was based on a Mediterranean network for neuro-muscular disorders, funded by AFM (France) and the MDA (USA). He led the identification and mapping of the Vitamin E Deficiency Ataxia (AVED), rare forms of Hereditary Motor Neuropathy and a Congenital Myasthenia Syndrome due to mutations in acetylcholine receptor ε-subunit gene.

He joined GlaxoWellcome in 1999 and then became Vice President and Head of the newly formed Translational Medicine & Genetics (TMG) Department within GlaxoSmithKline Research & Development, based in London. In this role, he led the development of the Imaging Centre at the Hammersmith Hospital (now the Invincro- Imanova Imaging Centre) and the Experimental Medicine Unit at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, University of Cambridge. In 2007, he was appointed Professor of Neurology and Head of the Department of Neuroscience and Mental Health at Imperial College London (ICL). In 2009, he moved to the  School of Public Health and created the Neuroepidemiology and Ageing (NEA) Research Unit (now known as the Ageing Epidemiology (AGE) Research Unit, to focus on observational and interventional studies for the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease and other age- related neurodegenerative disorders.

He is the principal investigator (PI) of the CHARIOT Register, one of the world’s largest volunteer registers for the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and ageing, now including >40,000 participants; PI of the industry sponsored CHARIOT-PRO (CPRO) prospective longitudinal, biomarker – enriched study on the natural history of the pre-clinical and early stages of AD. In recent years, he was Chief UK Investigator of three industry funded clinical trials in pre-clinical and early AD: TOMMORROW (Takeda), Amaranth (AZ-Eli Lilly) and Generation I & II (Amgen- Novartis). In years 2012-2017, he was the PI of a study of gene-environment interactions in Parkinson’s disease and related dementias (MJFF and UCB) and of the Parkinson’s UK Brain Bank, held at Imperial College London (2009-14). He founded and chaired the EIT-Health - Caring and Ageing Re-imagined in Europe (CARE)  in years 2015-2018 and also served (in 2015) on the Management Board of EIT-Health. He was appointed by the UK Government as Clinical Lead and Chair of the International Clinical & Technology Expert Group (CTEG) for Integrated Dementia Development, post the 1st Global Dementia Summit, (2013-2014). He also served as Board Member of the UK Medical Research Council (years 2004-2007) and was member of the expert panel appointed by the European Commission to evaluate FP5/6 and provide recommendations for H2020. He has authored / co-authored 203 peer reviewed scientific publications and secured, in years 2012-2020, his research grants in excess of £22 million.  

Selected Publications

Journal Articles