Draft:Benedict Michael

Benedict Michael is a medical doctor, consultant neurologist and researcher who specialises in neurological infection and inflammation and is considered a leading expert in his field of neurology. He is professor of neurology at the University of Liverpool and honorary consultant neurologist at the Walton Centre.

Education
After graduating at University of Liverpool (medicine and surgery), Michael undertook his PhD in Neuroimmunology in 2014. In 2018, Michael completed Post-Doctoral Training at the Center for Immunology and Inflammatory Disease, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School where he developed an intravital microscopy model of viral encephalitis to image leucocyte migration into the brain in real-time. In 2022, Michael received a Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP).

Career
Michael has been Director of the Infection Neuroscience Lab since 2021 at the University of Liverpool.

Following on from his work at Harvard, Michael identified the immune protein that was critical to calling a damaging immune-cell into the brain; and blocking this reduced brain swelling and improved outcome. . As a result of this, he received The Liversage Award for Neurology (NENA) and Vera Down Award for Neuroscience  (British Medical Association).

In 2013, Michael developed and evaluated a lumbar puncture pack which was subsequently advocated by the National Patient Safety Agency and forms the central intervention in UK since 2018 and an international (India, Brazil, Malawi) care quality improvement program.

Michael established the national Neurological Infectious Disease Advice Service (NIDAS) in 2018, through which clinical advice on the investigation and management of patients with infections of the nervous system is provided. He also helped develop the Queen Square Encephalitis MDT in 2018, at which multidisciplinary guidance on management is provided and data on emergent phenotypes and treatment paradigms is collected.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Michael re-focused his research and established the National Surveillance Programme for Neurological Complications, CoroNerve ; a collaboration of the UK's professional neuroscience bodies Royal College of PsychiatristsAssociation of British Neurologists.This was the first nation-wide study published and established that COVID-19 was associated with a spectrum of neurological manifestations, especially brain inflammation ; thereby informing the WHO Screening Check-list.

Since 2020, Michael has been a founding member and co-Director of the Global Neuro Research Coalition through which international collaborations on infection neurology research, including COVID-19 have been driven.

He has influenced the international research agenda through his work on the World Health Organisation (WHO) Expert Panel on COVID-19 neurology, as part of the WHO’s Brain Health Unit, leading the WHO Global Brain Health Clinical Exchange Platform , and co-Chairing the Acute Care Task Force for the Global COVID-Neuro Coalition.

In 2020, Michael was awarded the UKRI programme grant (£2.3m) to study the mechanisms of neurological complications in patients. The COVID-19 Clinical Neuroscience Study (COVID-CNS) is jointly led with Professor Gerome Breen at King’s College London, and is part of the COVID-19 section of the NIHR BioResource.

As Honorary Faculty for the Royal College of Physicians, Michael has helped lead their Millennium Development Goals educations program in West Africa.

For over 10 years Michael has developed and led the NeuroPACES training program, having trained over 1,300 junior doctors to pass the MRCP examination. In turn this course has generated both the funding and the tutors to run a free parallel program of clinical neurological infection training in Zambia and Mozambique. In 2019, his team received the British Medical Association Doctors as Volunteers Commendation, and were the Royal College of Physicians Excellence in Education Award (2020 Finalists).

Michael sits on the advisory panel for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) supporting the implementation of existing and novel therapeutic agents for neurological complications of COVID-19. He also advises the Academy of Medical Sciences (UK) on research priorities for neurological and mental health complications of COVID-19.

Michael is the Vice Chair of the Encephalitis Society's Scientific Advisory Panel (Charity Times Award, Winner 2019) and an expert advisor for the Meningitis Research Foundation, both supporting those affected and driving a globally-facing prospective research funding agenda.

He has appeared on many webinars, podcasts and Interviews to disseminate his work outside of the academic community, including interviews for the BBC, CNN, The Times, The Telegraph and the Washington Post. Michael was also Guest Editor on the UK television program Hollyoaks on Channel 4.

Research and publications
Michael’s research is primarily focused on the intersection between neuroscience and infection, researching the impact of infection on the brain, not just clinically, but also at an immunological, virologic, genetic, and neuroimaging level. He published the first nationwide clinicoepidemiologic study and established the UK as at the forefront of the understanding of the impacts of SARS-CoV-2 on the brain. It has been recognised that viral infection of non-Central Nervous System (CNS) organs, such as the lung, can drive a parainfectious immune inflammatory response in the brain without CNS infection. Indeed, Michael identified this during the H1N1 pandemic, however cases were too rare to study disease mechanisms in detail.

Working for the WHO, Michael’s research has directly informed the WHO Screening Checklist for COVID-19 in patients presenting with neurological complications of COVID-19 and also the WHO Scientific Brief on COVID-19 neurology.

In alliance with UK Health Security Agency (previously Public Health England) Michael has led an epidemiological study to evaluate the incidence of neurological complications of varicella zoster virus.

His work has been published in The Lancet , Brain Communications , PLoS One , Journal of the Neurological Sciences the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry and the Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences