Dr Ben Underwood
MA MBBS PhD FRCPsych CertMedEd
Assistant Professor of Applied and Translational Old Age Psychiatry, University of Cambridge
About me
Dr Ben Underwood studied Natural Science at Oxford University and Medicine at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. He completed his psychiatric training in Cambridge, where he also undertook a PhD in Molecular Neurogenetics with Professor David Rubinsztein, looking at autophagy as a therapeutic strategy in neurodegeneration.
He is Assistant Professor in Applied and Translational Old Age Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge and an Honorary Consultant Old Age Psychiatrist. His interests are in translational medicine in dementia, where he has been principal investigator (PI) for academic and pharma led clinical trials of novel Clinical Trials of Investigational Medicinal Products (CTIMPs). He is Clinical Director of the Windsor Research Unit, a facility dedicated to joining NHS patients with clinical research. He is the dementia lead for the East of England National Institute for Health and Care Research Clinical Research Network (NIHR CRN) and also national dementia lead for Stratified Medicine.
During the coronavirus pandemic his working life took an unexpected turn when he became a co-investigator on a number of coronavirus studies, including the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine study. Along with Mark Toshner, he organises the MPhil in Translational Biomedical Research at the University of Cambridge.
