About the author

Professor Gavin Giovannoni is an MSologist (MS neurologist) who works at the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel, London, UK. Gavin was appointed to the Chair of Neurology, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry and the Department of Neurology at Barts Health NHS Trust in November 2006. He is primarily based in the Blizard Institute. In 2017, he became co-director of the Preventive Neurology Unit, Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine.

His medical training was completed at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa and he continued his studies by completing a PhD in Immunology at the Institute of Neurology, University College London, in 1998. In 1999 he was appointed Clinical Senior Lecturer at the Royal Free and University College Medical School before moving back to the Institute of Neurology in 2000. He runs a translational MS research programme at Barts and The London School of Medicine.

Gavin’s current research focuses on the Epstein‒Barr virus as a possible cause of MS, MS-related neurodegeneration and MS biomarker discovery and validation. He co-authors the widely read and influential Barts-MS blog. And he is the Chair of the MS Brain Health Steering Committee, an international initiative launched in 2015, with the goal of revolutionising the management of MS to maximise lifelong ‘brain health’ and improve patient outcomes.

Gavin is also the academic director of the MS Academy, an innovative training programme for medical professionals who want to develop expertise in MS.