Rate My Professor Suvankar Pal

Professor Suvankar Pal holds the position of Professor of Neurodegenerative Disorders and Clinical Trials in the School of Neurological and Cardiovascular Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. His academic qualifications include BSc(Hons), MBBS(Distinction), MRCP(Neurology), MD(Res), PGCME, FHEA, and FRCP. He completed basic medical training at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, including Hammersmith Hospital and the National Hospital for Neurology, as well as the Royal Free Hospital, followed by higher specialist training in neurology in Edinburgh. In 2011, he was appointed Consultant Neurologist at NHS Forth Valley and the University of Edinburgh. He received an inaugural NHS Scotland Research Fellowship in 2012, was appointed Clinical Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences in 2018, and awarded a Personal Chair in 2023.

As Honorary Consultant Neurologist and Clinical Lead for Neurology at NHS Forth Valley, Professor Pal serves as Deputy Director of the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic, Group Leader at the UK Dementia Research Institute, and co-lead investigator of the UK-wide multi-arm multi-stage MND-SMART trial and the Scottish Motor Neuron Disease Register (CARE-MND). He leads the Pal Lab, focusing on innovative clinical trials, experimental medicine, and biomarker discovery for motor neuron disease, including digital acoustic biomarkers and reverse translation. His research interests encompass clinical trials for neurodegenerative disorders, population-based registries, equity of access to research, and biomarker development via digital and wet lab methods. Professor Pal leads the Year 2 MBChB Command and Control module in clinical neurosciences, supervises PhD students including MRC Clinical Training Fellows and Rowling Scholars, and is a member of the leadership team at the MRC Centre of Research Excellence in Clinical Trial Innovation and Co-Chair of the ACORD Fellows Academy. Key publications include 'Safety and efficacy of memantine and trazodone versus placebo for neuropsychiatric symptoms in motor neuron disease (MND-SMART): an adaptive, multi-arm, placebo-controlled, randomised, double-blind, phase 3 trial' (The Lancet Neurology, 2024), 'Survival and Prognostic Factors in C9orf72 Repeat Expansion Carriers' (JAMA Neurology, 2019), 'A systematic review and narrative analysis of digital speech biomarkers in motor neuron disease' (npj Digital Medicine, 2023), and 'Functional (Psychogenic) Cognitive Disorders: A Perspective from the Neurology Clinic' (Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, 2015).