The Ageing Brain
King’s is a centre of excellence for research on neuroscience, and the ageing brain. We host three of the UK's five prestigious MRC Neuroscience centres. Our active grant income of £96m supports 420 post-doctoral scientists and 130 PhD students.
Professor Clive Ballard at the Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases heads the Neurodegeneration & Clinical Trials group aimed at both understanding the molecular basis of disease, and discovering effective novel therapies.
Other groups in the Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases research ways of restoring function (headed by Professor Steve McMahon) and understanding the mechanisms of receptors and signalling such as are involved in the pathogenesis of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.
Elsewhere in the School of Biomedical Sciences, we have the MRC Centre for Developmental Neurobiology, comprising 23 different laboratories and headed by Professor Andrew Lumsden, FRS. The Centre has expertise with a variety of model organisms and hosts a number of principal investigators with specific interests in, for example, neuroendocrine control of ageing (Ch’ng ), actin dynamics underlying neurodegeneration (Eickholt) and molecular basis of neuronal connectivity (Meyer, Ng).
The Institure of Psychiatry is Europe's largest academic community devoted to the study and prevention of mental health problems, and repeatedly scores the highest possible rating in RAE scores. Researchers at the Institute work closely with clinical colleagues at the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust and King’s College Hospital Trust.
Within the Institute there are a large number of research programs on the ageing brain, and the excellence of the research is being recognised by further substantial funding streams. In 2006 we opened the MRC Centre for Neurodegeneration Research headed by Professor Brian Anderton.
The Institute of Psychiatry and its NHS Trust partners also recently won funding from the National Institute for Health Research to set up a Biomedical Centre of Excellence. The new NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health was established in 2007 and is headed by Simon Lovestone, Professor of Old Age Psychiatry.
Research groups