Bernard Yan

Professor Bernard Yan serves as Professor of Medicine (Neurology) in the Department of Medicine within the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne. He holds the degrees DMedSci, MBBS, and FRACP. He completed his specialty training in Neurology in Melbourne, Australia, followed by a two-year subspecialty fellowship in endovascular neurointervention in Frankfurt, Germany. Bernard Yan is a practicing clinical neurologist and endovascular neurointerventionist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Melbourne Brain Centre. Since his employment in 2005 at the Department of Medicine, University of Melbourne, he has pursued academic interests in cerebrovascular disease. He is the co-inventor and holder of the patent for the Neuroglide micronavigational system.

His major research interests encompass large clinical trials on acute endovascular clot retrieval (thrombectomy) for stroke, machine learning applications in neurology, and the interface between engineering solutions and neurological diseases, where he supervises PhD students. Bernard Yan has published 291 academic papers, including one as co-first author in The Lancet on endovascular thrombectomy versus standard bridging thrombolytic therapy within 4.5 hours of stroke onset, which demonstrated better outcomes and influenced stroke treatment guidelines. He has co-authored five papers in the New England Journal of Medicine, such as Endovascular therapy for ischemic stroke with perfusion-imaging selection (2015), Endovascular therapy after intravenous t-PA versus t-PA alone for stroke (2013), Thrombolysis guided by perfusion imaging up to 9 hours after onset of stroke (2019), Tenecteplase versus alteplase before thrombectomy for ischemic stroke (2018), and Trial of endovascular thrombectomy for large ischemic strokes (2023). Additional publications appear in Lancet Neurology, Circulation, Stroke, and Journal of Stroke, including a study on nurse-led smartphone electrographic monitoring for atrial fibrillation after ischemic stroke that led to practice changes in Australian neurology units. As immediate past President of the Stroke Society of Australasia, he developed and implemented Australia's first nationwide Stroke Unit Certification in 2022 to harmonize stroke management standards. He is the founding organizer of the 12-year-old Australia and China Training Initiative of Neurology (ACTION) programme, which has trained over 300 young neurologists from China, and a founding director of the Australasian Stroke Academy.

Professional Email: bernard.yan@mh.org.au