Sylvanne Desrivieres is Professor of Biological Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s College London. Her work focuses on the interplay between genetic, biopsychosocial and environmental factors in healthy development and in the development of eating disorders and comorbid mental illness. She is also Deupty Lead of the Eating Disorders and Obesity Theme at the NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre. 

She undertook a PhD at the University of Paris VII, studying the fundamental bases of oncogenesis, investigating molecular mechanisms of growth inhibition in tumorigenic T-lymphocytes, followed by postdoctoral positions in Switzerland (University of Basel, with a EMBO postdoctoral research fellowship) and Germany (German Cancer Research Centre, Heidelberg and Institute for Tumour Biology and Experimental Therapy, in Frankfurt).

When advances in the fields of neuroimaging had reached the stage where measuring changes of the brain in vivo had become a reality, she moved her career from the genetic bases of cancer to investigate the impact of genes on the human brain and behaviour. She became a member of academic staff at the IoPPN and was promoted to Professor in 2021.

Profesor Desrivieres' work is highly interdisciplinary, using longitudinal cohort designs, genomics, neuroimaging and behavioural and clinical assessments to discover the neurophysiological and cognitive traits that may be disrupted in individuals suffering from major mental illnesses.

In addition to leading the MRC-funded ESTRA project exploring biopsychosocial risk factors for eating disorders, she is a member of several large international consortia, leading Genetics Working on longitudinal neuroimaging x genetics adolescent cohorts in Europe (IMAGEN Consortium) and India (Consortium on Vulnerability to Externalizing Disorders and Addictions (c-VEDA). She also Chairs the Epigenetics Working Group of the international Enhancing Neuroimaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis consortium (ENIGMA).

As Race Equality Co-Champion, she chaired the IoPPN Race Equality Working Group for over three years, engaging with students and staff and actively working to promote an inclusive and supportive environment for all at King's. This has informed the development of the IoPPN Race Equality Action Plan.

Research interests

• Aetiology and underpinning mechanisms of eating disorders in adolescents and young adults.
• Eating disorder comorbidity with Major Depressive Disorder, Alcohol Use Disorder and Psychosis.
• Personalised prevention and early intervention of eating disorders
• Genomic bases of brain structure and function

Teaching

• Assessment Sub-Board Deputy Chair for the SGDP DEV-PP Masters programme
• co-leader of the Dissertation Module for the SGDP DEV-PP Masters programme
• Teaching on the postgraduate taught programmes MSc DEV-PP and MSc Neuroscience.

Expertise and public engagement

Professor Desrivieres has worked closely with charities (i.e., the Medical Research Foundation) and with media companies to ensure that eating disorders are well understood by the public. For example, she has engaged in dissemination activities as part of the Eating Disorders Awareness Week to assist in raising awareness and reducing stigma for patients with eating disorders.

A Questions & Answer based interview highlighting the significance of her work was published on the Medical Research Foundation’s website and on social media, which was liked and retweeted in beyond the UK.