Dr Thomas Pollak, PhD, MRCPsych, NIHR

Professor Tom Solomon is Director of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Protection Research Unit in Emerging and Zoonotic Infections, and Chair of Neurological Science at the University of Liverpool and the Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust. After qualifying in Medicine at Oxford, his research training included 3 years at the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Vietnam, and 2 at the University of Texas Medical Brain, Galveston, USA.

He works on emerging pathogens, particularly those that affect the brain, heading the multi-disciplinary Liverpool Brain Infections Group. His group works to reduce the UK and global burden of emerging neurological infections in adults and children, including major UK and international programmes on Covid-19.

Tom is a keen teacher, leading the annual Neurological Infectious Diseases course in Liverpool, and an enthusiastic science communicator; his popular science book Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Medicine was published in 2016, and followed by a sell-out show of the same name at Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2017. He won a Guinness World Record in 2010 for the fastest marathon dressed as a doctor, and another in 2014 for his Sci-Art project The World’s Biggest Brain. He hosts the Scouse Science Podcast, and tweets @RunningMadProf.