Professor Hugh Perry

University of Southampton

Hugh Perry is Professor of Experimental Neuropathology and head of the CNS Inflammation Group at the University of Southampton. He obtained his first degree at the University of Oxford, completing his DPhilin Neuroscience in 1977. He remained at the University of Oxford and was appointed a Locke Fellow of the Royal Society and then a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow. He was appointed Professor in Experimental Neuropathology in 1996. In 1998 he moved to the University of Southampton to take up his current post.

His research interests are in the field of interactions between the immune system and nervous system. The goal of his research group is to discover how inflammation contributes to the outcome of neurological disease. This information may help in the development of therapies to treat acute and chronic neurodegenerative conditions, which at present are largely untreated. He has published more than 275 peer-reviewed papers and has sat on research advisory and funding panels for the Medical Research Council and a number of biomedical charities including the Multiple Sclerosis Society, International Spinal Research Trust and Motor Neuron Disease Association. He has acted as a consultant for biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies in the area of neuroinflammation and neurodegenerative disease. He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2005 and is Deputy Chair of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. In 2012 he was appointed to the post of Chair of the Medical Research Council Neuroscience and Mental Health Board.