Clive Ballard is Professor of Age Related Diseases, Co-Director of the Biomedical Research Unit for Dementia at the Institute of Psychiatry, co-Director of the Wolfson Centre for Age Related Diseases at King’s College London and served as Director of Research for the Alzheimer’s Society between 2003 and 2013.  He has published widely in the areas of dementia with Lewy bodies/Parkinson’s disease dementia, vascular dementia and neuropsychiatric symptoms in people with dementia, including more than 25 influential clinical trials in this area. He has more than 500 research publications including papers in Nature, New England Journal of Medicine and the Lancet.  He has an extensive ongoing programme of research including key NIHR programmes focussing on improving the treatment and care for people with dementia living in care homes; MRC, HTA, commercial and charity funded clinical trials focussing on treatment of neuropsychiatric symptoms and disease modifying therapies for people with early Alzheimer’s disease and an extensive drug discovery programme in Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease dementia including substantial support from the Wellcome Trust, industry, Safra foundation, other charities and a European Union programme examining stem cell therapies for Alzheimer’s disease.  Perhaps his most substantial research contribution has been his body of clinical studies, pathological studies and clinical trials highlighting the considerable harms of antipsychotic drugs in people with dementia and key trials to provide evidence based alternative treatment approaches, which has contributed to a major change in clinical practice.

Clive has been Co-Director for the Biomedical Research Unit for Dementia (BRU-D) at the South London and Maudsley NHS foundation trust/King’s College London, together with Professor Simon Lovestone. He leads the synuclein dementia theme within the BRU-D, chairs the BRU-D management board and represents the BRU-D on the Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) for Mental Health management board.  Together with Professor Lovestone, he has been responsible for evolving the research strategy and managing the BRU-D budget.  He has also in parallel been successful in acquiring funding for a series of major RCTs to evaluate treatments for people with Alzheimer’s disease identified using the principles of experimental medicine and which will play a key role in enabling the BRU-D to achieve its’ objectives regarding clinical trials and experimental medicine, and in increasing the opportunities for people with dementia to take part in clinical research.  He also leads the dementia theme within the neuropsychiatry cluster of the BRC for mental Health, which has involved the development of an extensive care home research network which is already supporting 2 substantial NIHR/HTA funded RCTs and has attracted major commercial funding for a clinical trial to examine a novel treatment for psychosis in people with neurodegenerative diseases.