Hugh S Markus is Professor of Stroke Medicine and Honorary Consultant Neurologist in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Cambridge, UK.  His undergraduate training was at the Cambridge and clinical medical training at the University of Oxford.  He trained in Medicine at Oxford and Nottingham and in Neurology in London before being appointed as Senior Lecturer and then Reader in Neurology at King’s College London.  He then moved to Professor of Neurology at St George’s, University of London, before moving to his current post in 2013.

      Professor Markus’ research interests focus on what causes stroke and ways to develop better treatment approaches. He has a particular interest in cerebral small vessel disease, in which the small blood vessel in the brain become abnormal and which creates a quarter of all strokes, and is the most common cause of vascular dementia. Collaborating with groups worldwide, he uses genetic techniques to understand the pathogenesis of stroke and to identify novel pathways which can be therapeutically targeted. He uses imaging techniques (particularly MRI and positron emission tomography) to better understand how cerebral small vessel disease damages the brain, and to provide a readout to assess the effectiveness of new treatment approaches in clinical trials.

      He has held a number of leadership roles in the NIHR Clinical Research Network and Stroke Nationally and Internationally. He is editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Stroke and is on the executive committee of the World Stroke Organisation.