VCP Scientific Focus Group - Rickie Patani

Title of the presentation: Unravelling Cell Type-Specific Molecular Mechanisms in VCP Disease

Professor Rickie Patani is a physician scientist with over a decade of direct experience working on human induced pluripotent stem cell models of neurodegeneration. Rickie obtained his BSc (in Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience) and MBBS from Imperial College London in 2004. He gained MRCP in 2007 and a PhD in Human Stem Cell Neurobiology from Cambridge University in 2011, funded by a Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Fellowship.

While completing his higher clinical training in Neurology, he was awarded a Wellcome Trust Clinician Scientist Fellowship and started his research group at UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology in 2013. Rickie gained MRCP (Neurology) in 2015 and was appointed Honorary Consultant Neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square in 2017.

Rickie's lab moved to the Francis Crick Institute in 2017, where they continue to work primarily on human induced pluripotent stem cell models of neurodegeneration, with particular focus on the themes of RNA metabolism and cellular autonomy. In 2018, Rickie was elected Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and secured an MRC Senior Clinical Fellowship. Rickie was promoted to Associate Professor in 2018 and subsequently full Professor in 2019.

Rickie has been awarded several prizes for his group’s research including the Brain Sciences Young Investigator Award, the International 3Rs Prize, the International Paulo Gontijo Prize in Medicine, the Graham Bull Prize and Goulstonian Lectureship from the Royal College of Physicians, and the Lister Research Prize. Rickie currently serves on the MRC Neuroscience and Mental Health panel, the MRC Training and Careers Strategy Board and the MND Association funding panel.   The Patani Lab have a diverse portfolio of public engagement activities (see the group's twitter account @PataniLab for more information).