Rate My Professor David Bennett

Professor David Bennett is Professor of Neurology and Neurobiology at the University of Oxford. He serves as Head of the Division of Clinical Neurology, Wellcome Investigator, Honorary Consultant Neurologist at Oxford University Hospitals, and Research Fellow of Green Templeton College. His research focuses on the response of the nervous system to injury, aiming to develop strategies to promote peripheral nerve repair and prevent the development of neuropathic pain. This work complements his clinical interest in the management of peripheral neuropathy and pain. Bennett employs a multidisciplinary approach that includes electrophysiology, cell culture, preclinical transgenic models, transcriptional profiling, biomarker studies, psychophysical assessments, and genetic analyses in patients.

Bennett administers a specialist neuropathy and channelopathy clinical service. His research programme has advanced understanding of the signaling events leading to neuropathic pain, improved patient stratification, and identified new drug targets now undergoing clinical trials. He has contributed to knowledge of the genetic basis of inherited painful channelopathies, including familial episodic pain syndrome due to TRPA1 mutations and rare variants in Nav1.7, as well as the description and validation of novel pain mediators such as NGF and CXCL5. Bennett led the DOLORisk EU initiative and currently leads the PAINSTORM project, part of the UK Advanced Pain Discovery Platform. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, elected in 2020, and was awarded an honorary Skou Professorship at the University of Aarhus in 2019. He holds an MB and PhD and is a Senior Wellcome Clinical Scientist.