Professor Suvankar Pal
Professor of Neurodegenerative Disorders and Clinical Trials & Honorary Consultant Neurologist
- Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences
- Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic
- Euan MacDonald Centre for Motor Neuron Disease Research
Contact details
- Mobile: 07940 230846
- Email: suvankar.pal@ed.ac.uk
Address
- Street
-
Room FU303J
Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences
Chancellor's Building, The University of Edinburgh - City
- Edinburgh
- Post code
Background
Suvankar Pal is Professor of Neurodegenerative Disorders and Clinical Trials and Honorary Consultant Neurologist. He is a Group Leader at the UK Dementia Research Institute, a member of the leadership team at the MRC Centre of Research Excellence in Clinical Trial Innovation, and Honorary Professor at University College London. He is co-lead investigator of the UK wide innovative multi-arm multi-stage MND SMART trial, the Scottish Motor Neuron Disease Register (CARE-MND), a Deputy Director at the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic, and Clinical Lead for Neurology at NHS Forth Valley.
His clinical and research interests are focused on improving outcomes for people with neurodegenerative disorders, including accelerating early and accurate diagnoses, leading population-based disease registries for longitudinal deep clinical phenotyping, digital and wet lab biomarker development/reverse translation, and delivery of innovative clinical trials.
Qualifications
Suvankar graduated in Medicine with Distinction in Clinical Sciences, and Neurosciences, from King’s College London in 2001, completed basic medical training at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School (Hammersmith Hospital and National Hospital for Neurology), and Royal Free Hospital, before completing his Doctoral research investigating novel molecular diagnostic strategies in Prion disease and supporting the PRION1 trial at the MRC Prion Unit Institute of Neurology UCL. He completed higher specialist training in neurology in Edinburgh and was appointed to a Consultant Neurologist position in 2011 at NHS Forth Valley and the University of Edinburgh. Suvankar completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Medical Education from UCL/Royal College of Physicians in 2012 and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He was awarded an inaugural NHS Scotland Research Fellowship in 2012, and appointed to a Clinical Senior Lecturer Position at the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences in 2018. He was awarded a Personal Chair in Neurodegenerative Disorders and Clinical Trials at the University of Edinburgh in 2023, and an Honorary Chair at the UCL Institute of Clinical Trials and Methodology in 2026.
Responsibilities & affiliations
Group Leader UK Dementia Research Institute https://ukdri.ac.uk/team/suvankar-pal
Leadership Team MRC Centre of Clinical Research Excellence in Clinical Trial Innovation
Co-lead Investigator Motor Neurone Disease - Systematic Multi-Arm Adaptive Randomised Trial (https://www.mnd-smart.org)
Co-Lead Investigator Scottish Motor Neurone Disease Register (CARE-MND) (https://www.care-mnd.org.uk)
Deputy Director (Neurodegeneration) Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic (https://www.annerowlingclinic.org)
Work Package Lead CURE-ND4ALS
Clinical Lead for Neurology NHS Forth Valley (https://nhsforthvalley.com/health-services/az-of-services/neurology/)
Undergraduate teaching
Lead for Year 2 MBChB Command & Control Module
Postgraduate teaching
Co-Chair ACORD Fellows Academy (https://www.mrcctu.ucl.ac.uk/our-research/neurodegenerative-diseases/acord-collaboration/mrc-clinical-trials-unit-acord-fellows-academy/)
Open to PhD supervision enquiries?
Yes
Current PhD students supervised
Dr Johnny Tam - MRC Clinical Training Fellow
Dr Hatice Bozkurt - Rowling Scholar
Mr Isaac Chau
Past PhD students supervised
Dr Jane Lumsden
Dr Neil Watson
Dr Emily Beswick
Dr Briony Waddell
Dr Monica Icaza Valenzuela
Dr Harriet Ingle
Research summary
- Delivery of innovative clinical trials for neurodegenerative disorders including co-lead investigator for MND SMART (www.mnd-smart.org)
- Translating lab based drug discovery in experimental medicine trials
- Comprehensive longitudinal clinical registries for neurodegenerative disorders (including MND, dementia)
- Reverse translation, biomarker discovery (blood based and digital)
- https://ukdri.ac.uk/labs/pal-lab
- https://ukdri.ac.uk/team/suvankar-pal
- https://www.annerowlingclinic.org/clinics/mnd-clinic
- https://www.annerowlingclinic.org/clinics/cognitive-disorders-clinic
Affiliated research centres
Project activity
Pal Lab https://ukdri.ac.uk/labs/pal-lab
MND SMART Clinical Trial (https://www.mnd-smart.org)