Rate My Professor David Sharp

Professor David Sharp is Professor of Neurology in the Department of Brain Sciences within the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London. He serves as Centre Director of the UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) Care Research & Technology Centre and is an NIHR Research Professor, appointed in 2012 with a £2.3 million grant funding a five-year programme investigating neurological disorders including traumatic brain injury (TBI). Sharp studied medicine at the Universities of Oxford and London and obtained his PhD from the University of London in 2006. As an honorary consultant neurologist, he has a special interest in TBI and employs advanced neuroimaging to examine brain networks and cognitive impairments resulting from injury and disease. His career includes leadership roles such as Associate Director of the Imperial NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Brain Sciences and the Centre for Injury Studies.

Sharp's research specializations encompass the long-term consequences of TBI, such as neurodegeneration, chronic microglial activation, and network dysfunction, as well as innovative technologies to improve dementia care and diagnosis. He leads the ZeDTech dementia network, funded by £6 million from UKRI's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), which develops zero-burden technologies to support independent living for people with dementia. Key publications include 'Network dysfunction after traumatic brain injury' (Sharp et al., Brain, 2014), 'Inflammation after trauma: Microglial activation and traumatic brain injury' (Ramlackhansingh et al., Brain, 2011), 'The role of the posterior cingulate cortex in cognition and disease' (Leech & Sharp, Brain, 2014), 'White matter damage and cognitive impairment after traumatic brain injury' (Kinnunen et al., Brain, 2011), and 'Salience network integrity predicts default mode network function after traumatic brain injury' (Bonnelle et al., PNAS, 2012). His work, with thousands of citations, has significantly influenced understanding of post-injury cognitive decline and dementia pathology. Sharp delivers public lectures, including the CBIS Lecture Series on 'Traumatic brain injury and cognitive function', and leads projects on TBI in armed forces personnel, sleep monitoring sensors for dementia, and brain injury mapping.