Paul Matthews

Paul Matthews, MA (Oxon), DPhil, MD (Stanford), FRCP, FMedSci, is Director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Edmond and Lily Safra Professor of Translational Neuroscience and Therapeutics in the Department of Brain Sciences at Imperial College London, and a Group Leader in the UK Dementia Research Institute at Imperial. Since 2009, he has served on the Steering Committee of UK Biobank and chaired its Imaging Enhancement Working Group, which has supported the creation of the world's largest imaging epidemiological dataset, and since 2023 he has also co-chaired the UK Biobank Dementia Working Group.

His research addresses neuroinflammatory mechanisms of neurodegeneration, with a focus on Alzheimer's disease (AD) and multiple sclerosis, using epidemiological, MRI and PET imaging and molecular 'omics tools. This work is leading to new translational clinical studies on the role of mitochondrial and vascular dysfunction in AD progression, and on a novel brain immunomodulatory target.

He read chemistry as an undergraduate at Oxford and completed his DPhil there under Professor Sir George Radda, developing an early interest in magnetic resonance spectroscopy and imaging. He then completed an MD and internship in medicine at Stanford, before moving to the Montreal Neurological Institute for a Residency in Neurology, further postdoctoral research in Oxford, and an Assistant Professorship in Neurology and Genetics at McGill University.

He returned to Oxford in 1995 as an MRC Clinical Research Reader, later Professor, and founding Director of the FMRIB Centre. He then spent almost nine years as a Vice President at GlaxoSmithKline from 2005, holding senior portfolios including the GSK Clinical Imaging Centre and, later, the Global Imaging Group. He chaired the UKRI MRC Neuroscience and Mental Health Board from 2020 to 2024, and has served on numerous other national and international scientific advisory panels for academia and industry.

Paul was named Director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute in April 2024. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, a Fellow by Special Election of St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and a Fellow of the Academia Europaea. He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2008 for services to neuroscience.