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Staff Profile

Dr Claire McDonald

Intermediate Clinical Fellow/ Honorary Consultant in Geriatric Medicine

  • Personal Website: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7592-9952
  • Address: AGE Research Group,
    NIHR Newcastle Biomedical Research Centre,
    3rd floor Biomedical Research Building,
    Campus for Ageing and Vitality,
    Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 5PL
Background

Dr Claire McDonald is an Intermediate Clinical Fellow with the AGE Research Group at the NIHR Newcastle Biomedical Research Centre and an Honorary Consultant Geriatrician at Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust, where she leads the movement disorder service. Her research focuses on ageing syndromes, sarcopenia, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple long-term conditions (MLTC), with a particular interest in clinical trial design informed by the biology of ageing.


Nationally, Claire is a core member of the NIHR Cross-Infrastructure Intervention and Prevention Workstream for MLTC, contributing to coordinated efforts to address research challenges in this area. She also serves as Ageing Specialty Lead for the NIHR Research Delivery Network in the North East and North Cumbria, where she has played a key role in strengthening regional research infrastructure and clinical trial capacity.


Claire has established strong academic and clinical collaborations across Newcastle, Northumbria, and Durham Universities, as well as with local NHS partners. She has authored 38 peer-reviewed publications in high-impact journals including The Lancet Healthy Longevity, Neurology, Geroscience, and Age and Ageing. Several of her first-author papers have influenced major international guidelines, including those from the European Association of Urology, the American Physical Therapy Association, and the European Society of Cardiology.



Research

Claire is an academic geriatrician whose research is dedicated to improving the health and well-being of older adults through clinical trials that target the biological hallmarks of ageing. Her work addresses priority areas of unmet need, including multiple long-term conditions (MLTC), sarcopenia, and Parkinson’s disease in older adults.


She is Chief Investigator of MULTIPLE, a national registry designed to improve recruitment of older adults with sarcopenia and MLTC into clinical studies, and MULTIPLE-STRIDE, which explores how ageing-related biomarkers underpin shared symptoms across MLTC.


Claire is Co-Chief Investigator of REVITALISE, the UK’s first platform trial in sarcopenia, and of the ACIPIMOX study, a drug repurposing trial targeting muscle decline. She was Principal Investigator of MET-PREVENT, which tested metformin as a potential intervention for sarcopenia and frailty.


In Parkinson’s disease research, Claire led the ImPrOve PD study, a randomized controlled trial of bladder training, and currently acts as Principal Investigator for ACT-PD, a national platform trial assessing disease-modifying therapies. She was also Principal Investigator for Chief-PD, the UK’s largest Parkinson’s disease trial.


Across these roles, Claire brings expertise in adaptive trial design, drug repurposing, and geroscience to the forefront of clinical research—advancing biologically informed, clinically meaningful interventions that aim to transform care for older adults.

Teaching

Claire is committed to supporting the development of future clinical academics and researchers. Her supervision experience includes:

  • PhD supervision
  • Mentoring NIHR Green Shoots candidates and NIHR Biomedical Research Centre Research Fellows
  • Supervising MRES and undergraduate MBBS and SSC research students,.

She encourages inclusive research career paths and supports Allied Health Professionals and junior doctors to get involved in research. Claire also leads the AGE Research Group’s culture and team science working group and helps build regional research capacity through a roving research fellow program.

Publications