Suvankar Pal

Key facts

• His University of Edinburgh profile (published 9 June 2026) lists him as Professor of Neurodegenerative Disorders and Clinical Trials, Honorary Consultant Neurologist, Deputy Director (Neurodegeneration) of the Anne Rowling Clinic, UK DRI group leader, Honorary Professor at UCL and Clinical Lead for Neurology at NHS Forth Valley.
• The same profile lists no current CJD or prion post; it notes doctoral research on molecular diagnostics in prion disease and support for the PRION1 trial at the MRC Prion Unit.
• A Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences page dated 27 August 2024 names him as clinical lead of the National CJD Research and Surveillance Unit, with Colin Smith as Director.
• Senior author of the January 2022 JAMA Network Open validation of revised international CJD surveillance criteria, which raised sensitivity from 77.5 to 92.2 percent and found CSF RT-QuIC 91.6 percent sensitive and 100 percent specific.
• Co-author of the March 2021 Lancet Neurology biomarker and diagnostic guidelines for sporadic CJD and of the 2022 13-laboratory European CSF RT-QuIC concordance study.
• Senior author of a July 2024 Journal of Neurology study finding 10.8 percent of 250 definite sporadic CJD cases were CSF RT-QuIC negative, with younger onset, longer duration and more VV1 and MM2 subtypes.
• Co-author of 2023 to 2025 UK surveillance papers on young-onset and over-80 sporadic CJD, deep learning survival prediction (codon 129 and 14-3-3 as prognostic features), symptom drug treatment in prion disease, and vCJD in UK children (six cases in 27 years).
• First author of the November 2024 Lancet Neurology MND SMART stage two interim analysis: in 530 participants neither memantine nor trazodone outperformed placebo.
• MND SMART (NCT04302870) is registered as recruiting, started 27 February 2020, estimated 1,150 participants, arms include amantadine and tacrolimus; he is profiled as co-lead investigator, while the registry names Professor Chandran as overall official.
• Second author of a May 2026 Lancet piece on multi-arm multi-stage platform trials for neurological disease, affiliated to the MRC Centre for Clinical Trial Innovation; a May 2026 Brain Communications paper he led reports blood biomarker discovery in MND.
• He is not an author of the July 2026 multidisciplinary palliative and supportive care recommendations for CJD.
• The UK CMO letter of 29 August 2025 routes CJD referrals to the Edinburgh advisory service and the National Prion Clinic via service mailboxes and names no individual clinician; a charity notice says the Edinburgh advisory service funding ended on 31 March 2026.

Timeline

1. 2001Graduates in medicine from King's College London (search excerpt).
2. 2011Joins Edinburgh Medical School.
3. 2020MND SMART trial starts recruiting.
4. 2021Co-author of the international sporadic CJD biomarker and diagnostic guidelines (Lancet Neurology).
5. 2022Senior author of the validation of revised international CJD diagnostic criteria (JAMA Network Open).
6. 2022Co-author of the European CSF RT-QuIC concordance study (Eur J Neurol).
7. 2024Senior author of the RT-QuIC negative sporadic CJD case study (J Neurol).
8. 2024CCBS page lists him as NCJDRSU clinical lead.
9. 2024First author of MND SMART stage two interim results (Lancet Neurology).
10. 2025Co-author of vCJD in UK children after 27 years of surveillance.
11. 2025UK CMOs letter sets out the Edinburgh advisory service and NPC joint referral.
12. 2026Funding for the Edinburgh National CJD Diagnostic Advisory Service ends (charity notice).
13. 2026Co-author of Lancet piece on platform trials for neurological disease; senior author of MND blood biomarker paper.
14. 2026University profile published listing MND, trials and Anne Rowling Clinic roles, with no CJD post.