UCL Institute of Neurology

The Queen Square Library has been awarded a grant of £82k from the Wellcome Trust to catalogue and preserve the collections of case notes and films held as part of the Queen Square Archive. Significant work on the archives has already been carried out as part of the recent £1m refurbishment of the Library, funded by the National Brain Appeal and the Brain Research Trust, which included the creation of a base for the archives of the National Hospital and a museum.  A web site is now available providing access to results of the work carried out to date.

The EpiPGX Consortium, involving 15 partners from 8 countries, has received almost €6 million funding from the European Union FP7 programme to investigate the genetic basis of responses to antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) in epilepsy.

Over 50,000,000 people across the world have epilepsy. For many people, AEDs are simply not available, or the choice is extremely limited. In other countries, several AEDs are available to be prescribed, but the evidence guiding choice of drug for an individual patient is very limited. The EpiPGX Consortium will explore the influence of genetic variation on responses, both desirable and undesirable, to AEDs, aiming to identify genetic variants that will guide treatment choices at the individual level.

The Consortium is coordinated by Professor Sanjay Sisodiya, UCL Institute of Neurology (Department of Clinical and Experimental Epilepsy), with the following partners: Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium), Istituto Giannina Gaslini (Italy), Eberhard Karls Universitaet Tuebingen (Germany), Stichting Epilepsie Instellingen Nederland (The Netherlands), Universitaetsklinikum Bonn (Germany), Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (Ireland), Belfast Health and Social Care Trust (UK), Islensk Erfdagreining EHF (Iceland), Universite Du Luxembourg (Luxembourg), Universitair Medisch Centrum Utrecht (The Netherlands), The University of Liverpool (UK), Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine (UK), University of Glasgow (UK) and GABO:mi Gesellschaft fur Ablauforganisation:milliarium mbH & Co. KG (Germany).

The Consortium welcomes collaboration. Please contact s.sisodiya@ucl.ac.uk for further information.

Professor Ray Dolan has been elected a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science (APS) for “sustained outstanding contributions to the science of psychology”.

We are delighted to announce that Professor Clare Fowler, UCL Professor of Uro-Neurology at the Institute and Honorary Consultant Uro-Neurologist at the NHNN, UCLH Trust, has been awarded a CBE in the New Year Honours List "for services to Uro-Neurology".

A patient who is part of the first first UK trial to evaluate the impact of 'deep brain stimulation' on Tourette's - a collaboration between the UCL Institute of Neurology (Unit of Functional Neurosurgery) and the National Hospital of Neurology and Neurosurgery - has experienced a dramatic recovery.