John O'Brien

• Professor of Old Age Psychiatry and NIHR National Specialty Lead for Dementia University of Cambridge

John O’Brien is Professor of Old Age Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge and an active clinician, holding appointments as Honorary Consultant within Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Trust and Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust. He has previously held posts in London, Melbourne and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He is a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Emeritus Senior Investigator and a Fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences. He is the NIHR National Specialty Lead for Dementia.

His main research interests are in clinical and imaging aspects of Lewy body dementia, the role of vascular factors in dementia and depression and clinical trials. He has published over 600 peer-reviewed papers on these topics and has been a member of the National Institute for Health and Social Care Excellence (NICE), British Association of Psychopharmacology, European Federation of Neurological Sciences and European Stroke Association Dementia Guideline groups. He is a recipient of the Royal College of Psychiatrists Lifetime Achievement award in Older People’s Mental Health and the distinguished service award from the International Psychogeriatric Association.