:: D-Gen :: Our Team

Director and founder of D-Gen, John Collinge is a leading international researcher in prion disease and in 2004 was awarded a CBE by the Queen for services to medical research. He has been involved in prion disease research since 1988 and is Director of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Prion Unit, the main focus of MRC funded research in prion disease in the UK. He holds an established chair of neurology at the Institute of Neurology, University College London and is head of the Department of Neurodegenerative Disease there. He is an honorary consultant neurologist to the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London and is Clinical Director of the National Prion Clinic. Previous academic appointments include: Professor of Molecular Neurogenetics (Imperial College), Wellcome Principal Research Fellow in the Clinical Sciences, Wellcome Senior Research Fellow in the Clinical Sciences. Professor Collinge has been involved in many advisory committees nationally and internationally. He has been a member of the UK Government's Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (SEAC) and Deputy Chair of the European Union High Level Group on BSE in 1996.

He has authored numerous scientific publications and his group has also contributed to some of the most significant advances in prion research. These include: demonstrating genetic susceptibility to CJD, producing the first firm experimental evidence of a link between BSE and vCJD through developing a biochemical test that identified differences in prion strains; developing a test to detect abnormal prion protein in tonsil tissue to diagnose vCJD; demonstration that human prion protein can be reversibly interconverted between its native alpha helical form and a beta sheet rich form similar to that accumulating during disease; development of mouse models of human prion diseases to study the species barrier limiting human infection with BSE prions; the demonstration of subclinical carrier states of prion infection; showing that monoclonal antibodies could form a basis for future medicines to treat CJD; demonstrating the ability to halt onset of clinical disease and reverse early pathology in established brain infection with prions by interference with prion protein expression.

Dafydd Thomas is Emeritus Professor of Clinical Neuroscience, Imperial College and Consultant Neurologist to the National Prion Clinic at the National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery. He is the chairman of the St. Mary's Therapy & Imaging Ltd. Dafydd has been a Director of D-Gen since its foundation and is particularly interested in the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of prion and other neurodigenerative diseases.

Bernard Jolles is an independent corporate finance consultant with a background of over 25 years' experience in investment banking including senior positions at Samuel Montagu (now part of HSBC) and Henry Ansbacher. He specialised in transactions such as acquisitions, disposals, management buyouts, public takeover offers and capital raisings for public and private companies, private equity and venture capital firms and corporate management teams. He has acted as a director of public and private companies including as a chairman of a listed company. He became a Director of D-Gen in 2010.