Dr Adrian Ivinson has been appointed to the role of Chief Operating Officer for the UK DRI.
Bringing a wealth of experience and innovation in neurodegenerative diseases research, Dr Ivinson is currently Executive Director of the Institute for the Neurosciences, and of the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases, both at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a Harvard Medical School affiliate.
Working closely with the UK DRI Director, Dr Ivinson will provide operational leadership and direction across the UK DRI’s six centres to ensure the readiness and development of the institute.
A dual UK and US citizen, Dr Ivinson completed his undergraduate and graduate training in the UK before moving to the US where for eight years he was part of the Nature Publishing Group, including Editor of Nature Medicine and Publisher of the Nature monthly journals. He joined Harvard Medical School in 2001 as the founding Director of the Harvard NeuroDiscovery Center where he helped develop the vision of an integrated and intensely collaborative research centre that sought to better understand and prevent neurodegenerative diseases. After 12 years leading the centre, Dr Ivinson took the position of Director of Translational Research, allowing him to focus on those programmes with a more overt translational emphasis, and transitioned to Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Based at the UK DRI’s headquarters at UCL, Dr Ivinson, who will also have responsibility for corporate affairs, takes up his new role as the UK DRI’s new COO this August.
UK DRI Director, Bart De Strooper said of Dr Ivinson’s appointment: “I am delighted to welcome Adrian to the UK DRI team. Adrian has an unrivalled track record in developing and implementing research strategy, specifically within neuroscience research. His strong organisational skills and leadership will be key to embedding the new institute during its critical start-up period and to creating the highly motivated teams that will enable the UK DRI to achieve transformational change in the understanding and cure of dementia.”
Dr Ivinson said: “The UK DRI represents a remarkable commitment from the MRC, Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer’s Research UK to understanding, treating and preventing dementia. Our task, to create a world-class dementia research institute that will have a real impact on these devastating disorders, could not be more important or urgent and I am just delighted to join Prof De Strooper and his growing team at UCL, University of Cambridge, Cardiff University, University of Edinburgh, Imperial College London and King’s College London.”
