Martin Rossor, MD, FRCP, FMedSci

Honorary Consultant Neurologist, Principal Research Associate

To reduce the scale and impact of dementia, we need to explore what more we can do to prevent cognitive impairment.

Current Work

Martin is Honorary Consultant Neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Principal Research Associate at UCL Institute of Neurology and Honorary Professor of Clinical Medicine at Trinity College Dublin.

His research interests include novel neuroimaging methods for diagnosis and monitoring of neurodegenerative disease and neuropsychological descriptions of degenerative dementias. He has a particular interest in familial dementias; he has also been involved in a number of clinical trials and collaborative studies on molecular genetics of the neurodegenerative diseases.

Words of Strength

Facilitation

Vision

To reduce the scale and impact of dementia, we need to explore what more we can do to prevent cognitive impairment. This should include the prevention not only of dementia but lesser degrees of cognitive impairment.

Strategy

Martin is a clinical neurologist with a particular focus on the diagnosis and care of young onset dementia. He is also supporting the engagement of patients and public with research via ‘Join Dementia Research’.

Motivation

Martin is exploring with GBHI the concept of a cognitive footprint to provide a methodology for maximizing the positive and minimizing the negative potential effects on cognition of any policy.

Education & Experience

Martin is Professor Emeritus and Principal Research Associate at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, and until recently was the NIHR National Director for Dementia Research. He has been a leading figure in the field of dementia for over twenty years.

Following his training in clinical neurology at the National Hospital, Queen Square, he undertook primary research on the neurochemistry of degenerative dementia at the MRC Neurochemical Pharmacology Unit, Cambridge, before being appointed as Consultant Neurologist at St. Mary’s Hospital London and the National Hospital in 1986. Martin was appointed as the Chairman of the Division of Neurology in 2002, after becoming Professor of Clinical Neurology. He established a specialist cognitive disorders clinic, which acts as a tertiary referral service for young onset and rare dementias. 

Martin’s clinical research interests are in the degenerative dementias, particularly familial disease, and more recently in general cognitive impairment in systemic disease and multimorbidity. 

He established the Queen Square Dementia Research Centre and has served as the editor of the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, President of the Association of British Neurologists, Director of the NIHR Clinical Research Network for Dementia and Neurodegenerative diseases (DeNDRoN), and Director of the NIHR Queen Square Dementia Biomedical Research Unit. As part of the activities of DeNDRoN he established Join Dementia Research (JDR), a national system for linking patients and public to research studies. He has served on numerous advisory boards and was a member of the NIHR Strategy Board, associate member of the World Dementia Council, member of the 2020 Dementia Programme Board, and Chairman of the Senate for the German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE).

Awards & Honors

Gresham College
2022
Plenary Lecture
British Neuropsychiatry Association
2017
Medallist
Association of British Neurology
2017
Medallist Plenary
King's College London Institute of Gerontology
2017
David Hobman Lecture
Royal Society of Medicine
2012
Stevens Lecture for the Laity
American Neurological Association
2010
Plenary Lecture
Alzheimer Association
Alzheimer’s Disease Research
2009
Bengt Winblad Lifetime Achievement Award
Royal College of Physicians
2008
Croonian Lecturer
Royal Institution of Great Britain
2003
Science Today, Health tomorrow
World Federation of Neurology
1999
First McDonald Critchley Lecturer
Royal College of Physicians
1995
FE Williams Lecturer

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Martin

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Have ideas for global brain health or a collaboration? I would love to hear from you. Feel free to send an introductory note.