Key details
Transforming dementia diagnosis
Dementia is one of the leading health challenges of ageing societies, with Alzheimer’s disease as the most common cause. Genetics and life experiences shape risk and resilience, but current diagnosis often comes too late for effective treatment. Early, accurate identification of dementia subtypes is vital for delivering appropriate care, enabling access to new therapies, and designing prevention strategies.
The Schott Lab addresses this by integrating data from long-term population cohorts with advanced biomarkers, including blood tests, spinal fluid, brain imaging, genetics, sleep and movement tracking, and digital cognitive assessments. The team has pioneered studies in the British birth cohorts, identifying life-course influences on brain health and validating blood-based markers such as plasma p-tau217 for detecting preclinical Alzheimer’s. They are also testing digital tools like remote cognitive and sleep monitoring to spot early changes at scale.
This work could transform dementia care by enabling inexpensive, widely available diagnostics, allowing population-level screening, earlier interventions, and more efficient trials of disease-modifying treatments—ultimately helping delay or prevent the onset of dementia symptoms
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Prof Jonathan Schott
Prof Jonathan Schott is a Group Leader at the UK DRI at UCL. Find out more about his career and expertise on his profile page.
Research summary
CEREBRAL: Cohort-based Epidemiological Research Employing Biomarkers to Reveal Alzheimer’s in Later life
Dementia, particularly Alzheimer’s disease (AD), represents one of the most pressing societal challenges of our time, with ageing the greatest risk factor. Epidemiological and genetic studies demonstrate that life-course exposures – cognition, education, socioeconomic status, vascular health, and lifestyle – shape risk and resilience. However, current diagnostic paradigms identify disease only after symptoms emerge, missing the long preclinical window where interventions may be most effective. Novel blood-based biomarkers, digital phenotyping, and multimodal imaging now provide the opportunity to transform early diagnosis, stratify risk, and accelerate trials of disease-modifying therapies.
In work completed to date the Schott Lab has integrated deep phenotyping of the 1946 British Birth Cohort (Insight 46) with multimodal biomarkers (amyloid and tau PET, MRI, CSF/blood assays, proteomics, genetics, cognition, sleep, movement). They demonstrated that plasma p-tau217 predicts PET evidence of AD pathology years in advance, identified life-course factors shaping risk trajectories, and established digital cognitive and sleep measures as scalable functional markers. These advances underpin translation of fluid biomarkers (notably plasma p-tau217) into NHS diagnostic pathways and have already informed policy and clinical trials.
This programme, CEREBRAL, builds on this foundation, extending longitudinal analyses across successive British birth cohorts (1946, 1958, 1970), incorporating novel biomarker platforms (e.g. NULISA proteomics, finger-prick plasma assays), advanced computational modelling, and remote digital assessments. This approach will deliver insights into life-course determinants of dementia, validate scalable diagnostic tools, and explore optimal means of predicting clinical progression.
Programme objectives
- Identify life-course determinants of dementia risk and resilience by integrating biomarker, genetic, and epidemiological data from UK population cohorts.
- Optimise early, scalable detection of preclinical Alzheimer’s disease through validation of plasma p-tau217 and multiplexed biomarker panels, including finger-prick testing.
- Develop and validate remote digital tools (cognitive and sleep measures) as functional markers of presymptomatic disease for use in trials and population screening.
- Apply advanced computational models to integrate multimodal datasets, quantify disease heterogeneity, and improve trial design and prognostication.
Key publications
Vacancies
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Key details
- Location UK DRI at UCL
- £51,140 - £78,670 per annum including London Allowance
- Lab: Prof Jonathan Schott
About us
The UCL Dementia Research Centre (DRC), based in the Department of Neurodegenerative Disease and led by Professor Nick Fox, is a hub for clinical research into various forms of dementia. Our work focuses on identifying and understanding the disease processes that cause dementia, the factors that influence these disease processes, and how best to support people with dementia and their families. In addition to our research, we also provide a cognitive disorders clinic within the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery.
About the role
We are seeking an outstanding and highly motivated Clinical Research Fellow to join the internationally recognised UCL Dementia Research Centre (DRC). The post will involve cross-cutting work at the UK DRI at UCL and clinical contributions at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery (NHNN), Queen Square, London. The post is strongly translational, bridging population science, biomarkers, imaging, and clinical neurology. This post would particularly suit clinicians planning a career in academic neurology, old age psychiatry, or clinical neuroscience.
You will be involved in assessing research participants as part of a new project with participants recruited from the 1958 British birth cohort. Responsibilities will include clinical assessment of study members, obtaining PET/CT imaging, and blood sampling for genetics and biobanking. Contributing to data cleaning and curation, and to data analysis, you will work closely and collaboratively with the study coordinators, other researchers in the DRC clinical and imaging team, the MRC Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing, the Centre for Longitudinal Studies, and Institute of Nuclear Medicine, all at UCL. The working environment is collective and multidisciplinary.
There may be the option to register for a part-time PhD for a research project within the department.
An honorary contract will be sought from UCLH NHS Foundation Trust, for which a DBS check will be required.
The post is available from August 2026 and funded by the UK Dementia Research Institute at UCL for one year in the first instance.
About you
You will be a registered medical practitioner with a licence to practise in the UK and have completed MRCP (or hold an equivalent qualification from an international institution).
You will have experience in lumbar puncture and in neurology, or a relevant medical speciality, to a minimum of SHO/ST2 or equivalent level and be able to demonstrate a record of academic excellence.
Excellent oral and written communication skills and strong problem-solving abilities are essential, as is the ability to work cooperatively in a team environment with the ability to be self-organised and work efficiently. A very high level of consideration and care for patients and research subjects is also a requirement.
This role meets the eligibility requirements for a skilled worker certificate of sponsorship or a global talent visa under UK Visas and Immigration legislation. Therefore, UCL welcomes applications from international applicants who require a visa.
Lab members
- Ashvini Keshavan (Lab Lead)
- Heidi Murray-Smith (Platform Manager)
- Sarah James (Senior Researcher)
- James Groves (Postdoctoral Researcher)
- Kirsty Lu (Postdoctoral Researcher)
- Josh King-Robson (Postdoctoral Researcher)
Members of the Schott Lab and colleagues at AAIC
Collaborators
Lab funders
Thank you to all those who support the Schott Lab!
