Prof Siddharthan Chandran visits 256 Grays Inn Road

New UK DRI Director Prof Siddharthan Chandran visited 256 Grays Inn Road, where he will be based alongside UK DRI HQ.

This month, new UK DRI Director Prof Siddharthan Chandran visited 256 Grays Inn Road. Prof Chandran stepped into his role as leader of the Institute in October, marking the start of a new era for the UK DRI. As the future home of the UK DRI at UCL, Prof Chandran will be based at the new building. Here, he discusses his research interests, ambitions for the Institute and why he believes there’s never been a better time to be involved in dementia research.

What are your research interests?
Regenerative neurology. The field is on the cusp of moving from description and symptomatic management for neurodegenerative disorders to precision diagnostics and the beginnings of disease course modifying therapies. 

My UK DRI programme aims to unravel interactions between astrocytes, microglia and neurons to better understand neuronal and glial contributions to neurodegeneration and protection in ALS. Our focus is on C9orf72 and TDP43 mutations – leveraging our expertise in patient derived induced pluripotent stem cell experimental systems. Our work is linked also to innovation in clinical trial design with a focus on multi-arm multi-stage platform trials. This work is in partnership with the MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL. 

What are your priorities for the UK DRI over the coming years?
The mission of UK DRI is to transform the outlook for people at risk or living with dementia through research. The field is at a “tipping point” and poised to move from description to prediction, pre-emptive intervention and targeted disease modifying therapy. Recent success with anti-amyloid drugs lecanemab and donanemab shows the problem is tractable. 
The UK DRI is the science discovery engine of the UK. We will continue to focus on understanding and unpicking the human biology of disease initiation and progression. To accelerate the translation of our discoveries, we will build alliances and partnerships and, through human-centred studies, including experimental medicine and biomarker discovery, feed the pipeline for identification and then clinical testing of novel therapies.

Dementia is a global problem, with widening inequalities internationally and within the UK across ethnic and socially disadvantaged groups. Our research must be accessible to, and benefit from, widening participation and engagement with people from all backgrounds. There is a need for dementia research from data sources to participation in clinical and laboratory studies to be representative of the UK population. This will be a strategic priority area for the Institute.

What are you most looking forward to about being in the new building? 
The new state-of-the-art building that critically brings together and integrates care and research under one roof is key to realising the promise of human-centred discovery science to transform the outlook for people living with or at risk of dementia and related neurodegenerative disorders. It is a very exciting time full of possibilities.