Oliver James, Emeritus Professor of Hepatology
Newcastle’s long had, since the 1970s, some extraordinarily distinguished researchers into various aspects of ageing. Particularly brain ageing.
Perhaps starting with Sir Martin Roth, who was the professor of psychiatry and did a series of very important studies with the pathologist Bernard Tomlinson and his colleague Dr David Kay and a number of other people, that really put Newcastle ageing on the map.
Achieving excellence
I was the professor of geriatric medicine and in about 1995 I became head of the University's department of medicine. Around that time the Faculty of Medicine, took the decision that we were really going to try and concentrate on achieving real excellence in certain areas.
By a happy coincidence I got together as a physician interested in care of the elderly with three other individuals who each represented different aspects of ageing. There was John Bond who is a social scientist interested in ageing. Ian McKeith, professor of old age psychiatry and was instrumental in helping to dissect out the various different forms of dementia – Lewy body, vascular and Alzheimer’s Disease. And the fourth person in the quartet was Jim Edwardson.
Different disciplines working together
The four of us got together to try to start joining up social science, basic brain science, clinical science of old age psychiatry and clinical; medicine of old age – to join that up into something meaningful, principally for research but perhaps also for raising the profile of older people.
Until that time research into ageing and diseases of old people had been fairly second class citizens. There was a certain amount, all over the world, of very distinguished research into basic mechanisms of ageing, very basic science. But that hadn’t joined up much with clinical science.
Stroke and dementia research
Today stroke and dementia are two of the most important initiatives research and development areas in the NHS. But in those days they were very much second class citizens and seen to be the responsibility of old age psychiatrists and geriatricians.
People like Ian McKeith and I helped to turn those impressions around.
Committed to making ageing important
The main achievement that we had was in attracting Tom Kirkwood to come from Manchester to Newcastle. We were able to show Tom that the Faculty and the University were very committed to making ageing something really important. What he liked was, we were all different disciplines really working together. His arrival was a great catalyst.
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Read more about our early pioneers.
