We are pleased to announce that Professor Andrew Lees, Professor of Neurology, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, and Emeritus Director, Reta Lila Weston Institute of Neurological Studies, UCL Institute of Neurology, is the ABN Medallist 2015.

The ABN Medal is awarded annually to recognise outstanding contributions by British and Irish neurologists to the science or practice of neurology, or for contributions to the Association. Professor Lees’ medallist lecture was entitled Butterflies of the Soul.

I would like to thank my teachers and all the brilliant clinical fellows who have contributed to my academic success particularly my first bosses William Gooddy and Gerald Stern One hundred and fifty years after its opening The National Hospital Queen Square remains at the forefront of neurological research and patient care and I consider myself extremely fortunate to have been appointed to its staff in 1982. Professor Andrew Lees

Professor Lees has achieved international recognition for his work on Parkinson’s disease and abnormal movement disorders. He was Co-Editor-in-Chief of Movement Disorders (1995-2003) and President of the Movement Disorder Society (2005-6).
In 2002 he became Director of the Sara Koe PSP Research Centre and Chairman of the Medical Advisory Panel of the PSP Association.

Professor Lees is an original member of the Highly Cited Researchers Institute for Scientific Information with an h-index of 105.  He is the most highly cited Parkinson’s disease author for papers published between 1985 and 2011, and co-author of eight citation classics, with two of the top ten all time publications. He has 1172 publications.

He has had many worldwide honours including in 2006 the Movement Disorders Research Award of the American Academy of Neurology. In 2007 he gave the reinstated Gowers Memorial Lecture at the National Hospital and was elected Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, later becoming a council member. In 2010 he delivered the Melvin Yahr Memorial Lecture at Mount Sinai Hospital and the inaugural Lord Brain Memorial Lecture at Barts and the Royal London Hospitals. In 2011 he gave the David Marsden Memorial Lecture at the EFNS, in 2012 was the recipient of the Stanley Fahn Lectureship Award at the MDS in Dublin, and in 2014 he received the Jay Van Andel Award for Outstanding Research in Parkinson’s Disease.

Previous ABN Medallists from Queen Square include Christopher Earl 1996, PK Thomas 1997, WI McDonald 1998, Ralph Ross-Russell 2000, and John Morgan-Hughes 2008.

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